"Oh god no!"

My heart is breaking! I’m greeted this morning, as I step out of my camper parked for the nite in the rest area just west of Las Cruces into what used to be a beautiful, breath-taking view of the tiny city down below and the entire mesa that is now blanketed with thick gray smog and stretches as far as this hilltop vantage point reveals, I’m greeted by a beautiful young womon, black pony tail bouncing, in a tie-dye t-shirt and khaki shorts with a broad smile hurrying over to greet me and bashfully ask if she can facebook pictures of my truck.

Of course she can. We begin talking, her gushing over my truck and expressing her admiration for me and my messages. She asks me where I’m coming from and I find out she’s coming from Iowa – Marion, IA to be exact.

And where is she going to? She shyly looks down and tells me she’s in the military, headed to Texas. I’m devastated, telling her oh no, quit.

This child is sooooooo brainwashed. She tells me I don’t know but lots of people in the military agree with what I’ve written on my truck. What, DISARM the MILITARY???? She probably hasn’t seen that one.

She tells me the military has given her purpose – I say, yes to learn how to kill people. She smiles ruefully in admission but says she really wants to help people. She says it is the purpose of the military to protect the people of this country and to help people around the world.

I look at her with what I hope is a searching searing look. What? Help us how? I tell her she is going to be the ones sent out to kill and imprison people like me who are protesting. She shakes her head vigorously, visibly shocked, proclaiming that has never happened and won’t happen.

When I talk about Jackson State and Kent State, she tells me oh, that was such a long time ago…I tell her she is missing what is happening in the country right now – and she’s on the wrong side of the revolution, she’s on the side of our corporations.

She protests, telling me the military has given her a lot. I ask her to explain what has the military given her exactly, beside the skill to kill another human being. She again acknowledges that gain and adds proudly that she now is fluent in Arabic.

Arafuckinbic. I say oh so you can translate terrorist’s secrets as they’re screaming while being tortured. She giggles and says, ‘oh we don’t torture anymore’… REALLY????

Then she repeated again she can help people by translating and letting her fellow soldiers know they’re innocent. I say innocent of what? What if they want the military invaders – you – to leave their home? She says oh, we’re not allowed to kill - or torture - random people.

When I point out that we bombed Yemen yesterday killing 150 womyn, children and men, she looks sad and says she knows and that it is the fault of Saudi Arabia…

Okay.

Genesis is her name. My dialogue with her is sprinkled with my urging her to resign the military, to not allow her being to be so brainwashed and poisoned by military doctrine. To touch that part of her - that female and brown part - that knows the truth and can see the truth about the military machine.

She said she had no direction before the military gave her direction. I asked her what did she want to do with her life when she was 6 or 7? She immediately said she wanted to be a writer, a cartoonist really, dismissing the idea as ridiculous. I encourage her to revisit that, I tell her she would probably be a great cartoonist and there are a million ways – or at least 20 – to learn Arabic.

She is not a white womon, light brown, probably Hispanic I’m thinking. She confirms she’s from the Dominican Republic. I see her life now, a little miniscule brown spanish-speaking speck in Marion Iowa.

I talk more about how the military has been used – and is still being used – to shore up dictators, as Trujillo from her home, to conquer and enslave the people of her island, to divide the land mass.

She smiles pityingly but then says I’ve given her lots to think about. I ask her if she's read "In the Tiime of the Butterflies" about the Mirabel sisters. She has not heard of them nor of the book - Julia Alverez, the name comes to me as if I just read it yesterday.

I ask her if she’s registered to vote, which she is. Then I take the plunge and ask her if she’s voting for Trump.

She says, “Oh god no” and we hug.