Killen, Texas, Home of Ft. Hood

Friday afternoon, 4p.m., 100 or so degrees

Our group of eight set off from Camp Casey, Crawford, Texas, to hand out GI Rights information to military personnel leaving Ft. Hood. We were workin' the signs with the Hotline phone number: 1-800-394-9544.

Killen, I'm discovering, is about the same as so many -- not-bay-area -- towns in the U.S.: sprawling, one- and two-storey buildings, lots of convenience-type stores, smallish parking lots but lots of 'em, lots of dead space (by "dead" I mean .... un-energized space... space that feels abandoned... space with no there there; picture weeds growing in the cracks in the pavement and you sharing my feeling….). And lots of big pick-up trucks….

We parked in one of these small parking lots near Lemil's Nails #2, the cleaner and boot repair store, the gas station. The ripe smell of death lingered in the air... a decaying cat lay in the gutter. Wendy and I took up our spots near this decomposition on the corner of the small parking lot serving LeMil’s Nails # 2. Despite the Eau de Death it was a good spot as several GIs - and a Company Commander - turned into the lot to talk.

Darrel was the first GI to turn off the main drag into the lot. He is a "lifer" and soon will be on his way back to Iraq for the 4th time! My conversation with Darrell included what he had to lose if he quit the army: his bennies, his career, his Honorable Discharge. If he stayed in and returned to Iraq for the 4th time he could lose his leg(s), his arm(s), his mental health, his life. He took several accordion cards and we looked into one another’s eyes. He understood that I understood: this is serious stuff.

Jason was attracted to our advertisements (Wendy’s sign presented the Hotline phone number; my sign read: “Resist! Ask me how!”). Jason has served one tour of duty in Iraq and has a second tour coming up. Again, that familiar intense look into my eyes to see if I could be trusted. Jason kept his engine running while we talked. Actually Darrel had left his engine running too but with Jason it felt furtive, like he was a john and I a hooker and he might spook at any moment, tamp down his need, and disappear. Intuiting Jason’s conflicts – the fear of knowing and the compulsion to know more -- I talked about going to Iraq to visit my son and about knowing a teeny tiny slice of what our troops faced over there. I told him that there are a lot of people in the States who don’t support his being sent back, many people who don’t support the war, and that, if he has any questions about what is on the accordion card or what options are open to him, he should call the Hotline. Jason started crying and his eyes asked me not to acknowledge these tears. When I started tearing up he understood he was safer than he’d thought. Then, with a “yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am” he revved his car, turned around, and left.

Company Commander Tom Weiss walked up behind me before I noticed him. His arms were folded across his chest when he asked me, “What are you doing? What is this about?”

I held up Resist! Ask me how! - and explained we were sharing information about GI Rights with any GIs who stopped and indicated a desire to talk. Tom and I engaged in one of those looping conversation about “those who bomb and kill and chop off heads” and “those who try to prevent it.” Since this is the familiar Loop that Exhausts, I moved the conversation to recruiters, recruitment strategies, and the young folks who have no business being in the military and the recruiters who know it. I added the recent news about 80 upcoming trials for recruiters charged with raping potential recruits. Tom asked for the name of the investigating reporter.

“Martha Mendoza.”

“I’d heard there are a few such cases but didn’t know it was that many.”

“And these are cases that we know about and that are going to trial ….”

Tom and I continued talking then he said, “Well, you and I are going to have to agree to disagree.”

“Tom, we’re not disagreeing. You and I are sharing worldviews and we’re doing so in a manner that is respectful and communicative.”

“We are,” he said. He held out his hand and we shook on that.

The sidewalk was hot. The still air stunk. My feet were swelling. Wendy turned back to look at me. I poured a stream of lukewarm water down the front of my chest and down my back and adjusted the borrowed straw Stetson shading my face; the slight movement caused a momentary coolness on my scalp.

I looked back at the rest of our team -- Rebecca, Carl, Hart, James -- handing out accordion cards on the T-junction; they looked as if they could go on forever.

Another large SUV stopped near me and the BDU’d driver beckoned me. His companion was a robust young woman with hair pushed under her camo cap. I held up “Resist! Ask me how” as we talked. They were concerned that I not dis the military – and by extension their choice of career and way of life.

He said, “I thought maybe you were one of those anti-war peaceniks who were against the military….”

“Well, I am against the war. I’m against young people being lied to by recruiters, been told they won’t be sent to war, and being threatened with jail if they want to get out…. They don’t want to be there and you don’t want them to be there either if you life depends on them, do you?”

“I sure don’t.”

The young woman remarked, “Everyone knows that recruiters lie…that’s part of their job. I hated boot camp too. But, within a month of joining my permanent unit, I loved it.”

Essentially, this conversation continued in this vein with the added twist that the young woman shared her view that, “female GIs push themselves at recruiters and the male GIs then, after they have sex with the men and the men move on, the women shout ‘rape’.”

The Killen police arrived at the T-junction and Wendy and I moved toward that group to follow events. Their arrival was a continuance of an ongoing conversation about exactly where protestors could stand on the sidewalk and exactly what we could do and not do.

Our teams drove back to Camp Casey; Freedom, Democracy, and Fourth Amendment Rights survived another day in Killen.