At a time when her college peers are debating what to major in, going to parties, and working jobs they can quit without threat of prosecution, Rosa is a secret traitor. She is a conscientious objector stuck in a National Guard uniform during the War on Terror. When the call comes to ship out, she faces the biggest quandary of her life: stay in an organization she has lost respect for to fulfill her duties, or follow her moral compass, no matter the consequences. This award-winning memoir is about the struggle to do the right thing when right and wrong is not black and white. It's about forbidden romances, moral mind games, and the Army’s unnerving ability to function like a family. It’s a story about a girl who made a bad choice and had to stand up against a male-dominated apparatus so powerful it has its own laws. It’s about digging under those walls and emerging with something to say about the sanctity of youth and a freedom that is truly free.
PRAISE:
"It’s hard to believe that a 17-year-old who can’t vote or drink can go to war. Del Duca’s experience as one of those teens — who joined the National Guard to pay for college and then finds herself on the verge of being sent to fight a war she thinks is morally wrong — is as harrowing as they come. I was riveted by her story and her strength." —Julia Scheeres, NYT bestseller Jesus Land and A Thousand Lives
"She is a beautiful storyteller as she unravels the ugly truths about good intentions twisted and used by the violent and careless system." — Jodie Evans, CODEPINK
"A page-turner, a gripping blow-by-blow account of how Rosa del Duca's immersion in military culture comes to a crisis point when her conscience awakens." — Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil
"Honest, beautifully-written, and immensely compelling." — Matthew Zapruder, Why Poetry and Sun Bear.
"Impossible to put down." — Marilyn Abildskov, The Men in My Country
