He laughs a little at that, and nods. "I'll ask them," he says, determined. "I'm a very good arguer." His smile is a little conspiratorial. "And if you'd tell them too I bet they'd say yes."

His eyes go a little wider when he hears that. There was the war in the desert he watched on TV at home, the one that's kind of like -- but that he has to remind himself isn't the same one -- what Alex was in. But that's a different kind of fighting than people coming to your home and trying to destroy it, he thinks. Maybe a little more like World War II, like his green soldiers in the can are from, because the Nazis went into other countries and tried to take them over and blew things up.

"That's scary," he says. "I'm sorry the -- bad guys," he says, because sometimes people tell him it's not that simple, but it seems pretty simple to him. "Are trying to hurt your people. Your brother must be really brave. You are, too." He mulls over that for a long few moments.

"I don't think they let girls fight, where I'm from," he says after a minute. "It's stupid, but I don't think I've seen a girl soldier." His toy soldiers are all boys, anyway.