I've not posted too many diaries here, but I spend time each day reading. One thing I have come to appreciate beyond the chance to educate myself politically through the astute analysis and commentary is the sense of community. My family and I need that right now.
(Please follow me...)
My brother is a US Army veteran, with recent tours in Iraq both as active duty and reserve. In October 2004, he told us he could spend the rest of his reserve time working through a private contractor in Iraq. He did not tell us which contractor, or what he'd be doing. This didn't actually seem odd to us because he, like my father, had been doing military intelligence. (My dad was with Marine counter-intelligence in Vietnam.)
We'd hear from him by phone sometimes while he was there, got regular snail-mail, and he wanted to be home. We talked to him by phone at Christmas. He was glad to be back home with his wife and daughter and had no plans to return.
In late January, Mom got an email from him saying he had a new address in Iraq. It was devastating to Mom.
I'm going to cut to the chase here. Mom and I got an odd phone call about 1:30am Friday morning from someone who sounded exactly like my brother saying he'd gotten into trouble here in Phoenix. The person called our unlisted number, had my name and Mom's name, and asked to get him out of the Madison Street jail. Despite the fact that being in jail is completely out-of-character for my brother, we went off to see what we could do.
Needless to say, my brother was not there. We called every other law enforcement authority in the greater Phoenix area, and the state cops. No record of my brother anywhere. At this point, the state authorities told us to call Texas. My brother's legal address is there, where his wife and daughter are also living.
We called my brother's cell phone number, and left a message with a priority page. By this time, we also called the Texas state police. Because my brother's wife doesn't get along with us, she seldom if ever answers the phone when we call. So we had the Texas police call her to ask if she'd heard from my brother recently. The officer from Texas said that, according to her, she'd been online with my brother the night before, and he gave us a cell phone number she said belonged to brother. It matched the one we already had, so we decided to wait for him to call back.
When we did get a call back, it was from a total stranger in Maryland who said he'd gotten a page from us. He'd had the cell number for a few months, did not know my brother, or his wife.
She still won't answer when we call, which we have a couple of times since Friday.
So... where is my brother?
I know DKos won't be able to answer that question, but maybe some of you have a few ideas of how we can at least start looking. The local authorities can help some, but without more info on who he's working with in Iraq, they're a bit limited, they say. We won't be okay until we talk to him. No email, no computer chat, just phone-to-phone or face-to-face (not realistic, but...)I know this is a little disjointed and faintly hysterical. We've not in actuality spoken to my brother since December, and we have no real evidence that he's in Iraq. It's all been too weird for us.
Anyway, I'm asking for help and ideas. Two things which I've seen in abundance on DKos since I started hanging here.
Thanks and blessings on you all.
[Update: Thanks to all for the suggestions. We're leaving now to follow up with our local authorities. I will respond further when I can. Again, thanks!]