Get them before they get us....

A beautiful young womon, Natasha, signals me to pull over and I do into the Whole Foods parking lot.

She rushes over to hug me and tell me she loves my truck and can she take pictures. She asks a white womon, also gushing over the truck, to take our picture at the back where I've painted "Black Womyn's Lives Matter" and "White Silence is Violence"

After the white womon leaves, Natasha says she's from Ohio but she's on her way back to her military base in New Jersey. I freeze.

Why, I ask her. She is startled for a moment, recovers, and informs me that most of her fellow soldiers in the military agree with me, I'd probably be surprised to know.

I wonder how closely she's read my truck but ask her again, why is she in the military. She says she flounder around awhile after high school, did a little community college, had a few jobs, and then joined so she can experience life.

I try to hold her eyes with as much compassion as I can muster and tell her it's not her fault that she's inundated with military propaganda that makes her think she can experience life while taking someone else's life.

She retorts with much confidence, well it's better to get them before they get us.

She seems unaware of our break of camaraderie, so I can only tell her about the GI Rights hotline - just in case she finds herself in any number of the brown and black countries we're now invading...