“Do what?”
“Serve.”
Serve. Oh my god.She hated that word. She hated that way of thinking about it. Why should Caryserveanyone, why would hewantto? “Imean, one,” she said, “I question the truth of that. That someonehasto do it. And, two, it doesn’t have to beyou.”
“Are you suggesting that we don’t need a standing military?”
Shiloh didn’t know the difference between a standing and a sitting military, but yeah, she figured the whole world would be a lot better off without American boots on the ground. “I’m suggesting that we don’t need to devote so much of our money and blood into dominating the world by force.”
“Okay, John Lennon.”
“I’m not being John Lennon.”
“It just seems like, all you are saying is give peace a chance.”
“I’m not John Lennon. John Lennon beat his wife.”
“That wasn’t very peaceful of him...”
“What I’msaying,” Shiloh said, “is that we have a military so that we can kill people who disagree with us. And I don’t understand why you want to be apartof that. You couldkillpeople, Cary. You’re going to work on a submarine with nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are anatrocity.”
“The goal is to never use them.”
“So we spend jillions of dollars on missiles, hoping we don’t have to use them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know that I don’t want you to kill people!”
Cary stopped walking. Shiloh didn’t want him to stop. They were about to cross Thirtieth Street, and there wasn’t a traffic light, and they needed to focus and then make a run for it.
“Wouldn’t you rather it be me?” he asked. His eyebrows were bunched over his yellow-brown eyes. “When you think about those submarines, and the bombers, and the machine guns... wouldn’t you rather know that there was someone like me there, someone you trust?”
“No.I don’t want you anywhere near there!” Just thinking aboutit made Shiloh feel out of breath. “If the military has to exist, if we’re stuck with this situation, let someone else corrupt their soul.”
“You really think it’s going to corrupt my soul?”
“You really think that killing babieswon’tcorrupt your soul?”
“I’m not killingbabies!”
“There are no baby-freebombs. Bombs don’tdiscriminate.”
They were standing by the 7-Eleven on Thirtieth Street. And Cary was wearing his Beetle Bailey uniform and carrying his fifty-pound backpack. And Shiloh was wearing a vintage dress, something a big-boned housewife had worn in 1952, over long-underwear bottoms. And Shiloh was shouting, and Cary waspracticallyshouting back, “I just don’t understand who you think should protect this country! Whose responsibility it is!”
“Not yours!”
“If not me,who?”
“I don’t actually care!”
Cary shook his head, and then he walked into traffic.
“Cary!” Shiloh screamed.
