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activism
Small Protests Can Be Beautiful
As I stood holding a “Hands off Palestine” sign outside the west gate of New Mexico’s Holloman AFB, the home of the largest training base in the US for killer drone operators, I looked back, over my shoulder, and I was astounded to see Toby Blomé, the chief organizer of the protest, lying flat on the pavement, blocking a car trying to enter the base. Holloman graduates over 700 killer drone operators a year.
Toby was not only interrupting the base’s daily routine in a call to conscience, she was demonstrating how no more than a dozen protesters can get people talking about war on a military base and in a military town, Alamogordo, New Mexico.
We had come to Alamogordo on Sunday, April 20, 2025 for a weeklong “Shut Down Drone Warfare” protest, the third such protest in three years.
Most of the MPs were very young, and several seemed troubled by what Toby was saying.
Each morning and afternoon during commuting hours that week, we stood with our signs and banners along Route 70, stretching flat, hot, and dusty across the vast Tularosa Basin, running west to the main entrance to Holloman, and beyond, to the Arizona state line.
Our visual messages changed daily as we connected the dots between militarism and ecocide, climate chaos, political indoctrination, and the immorality and illegality of drone warfare. This year we particularly emphasized US complicity in the horrific genocide in Palestine, where US drones are being used for surveillance in support of Israeli attacks in Gaza and, we believe, elsewhere in the region.
We watched intently for any sign of approval from base personnel as they sped to and from work, many thrilling at the speed and muffler blare of their hot-rodded sedans and sports cars or their motorcycles. We were rewarded with sparse waves, peace signs, and honks, including from other travelers, most frequently in air horn blasts from the drivers of commercial 18-wheelers.
As is the custom of the annual protest, on Wednesday, we planned a direct action, blocking an entrance to the base and holding the blockade for as long as possible. This year, Toby suggested that we go to the base’s west gate instead of the main entrance.
We had learned on Monday that a new feature near the base’s main entrance is a blue line, apparently painted expressly for us, allegedly marking the boundary between federal property, subject to federal trespassing charges, and Otero County property, subject to county law, which would possibly carry lesser penalties for trespassers. It was over 200 feet farther away from where we had occasionally stationed ourselves in past years, giving us less access to traffic approaching the gate’s entrance.
On Wednesday, 12 of us arrived at the west gate at about 6:00 am MT. As the sun began to rise over the Sacramento Mountains, we walked fast across the four-lane highway and quickly set ourselves up across the gate entrance with our signs, banners, and Veterans for Peace flag.
Toby was the only who felt that she could fully risk arrest. There were five others of us who were willing to take a lower risk and participate in the human blockade until county officers arrived to order us to disperse.
Toby, standing in the middle of us, held a sign saying, “HOLLOMAN, NO DRONES 4 GENOCIDE.” Others on either side held banners reading, “CEASEFIRE For the Children” and “Every 15 Minutes A Child in Gaza is… Killed.”
All of us were initially standing on the “federal” side of the new blue line. In addition to the banners and signs, we were each wearing small signs over our chests, with a different name and age of one of the Gaza children killed in the genocide since October 7, 2023.
Almost immediately, a black sedan, driven by a woman, pulled into the short driveway, stopping just short of our blockade, unable to pass. None of us moved. At least three military police (MPs) came from inside the base to talk with Toby as a line of cars and pickup trucks of base personnel began to back up on Route 70. Toward the end of the jammed-up line, some drivers began to pull out of line, crossing into the eastbound lanes to head back to the base’s main gate.
We in the driveway were told that we were trespassing on federal property, and that we faced federal trespassing charges. At that point, those flanking Toby with banners stepped forward onto Otero County property. Toby remained behind us, on the federal side of the line. Toby continued to talk with the MPs, explaining the need to stop drone killing.
As one MP warned Toby of her pending arrest, she quickly lay down silently in front of the black car, in an unplanned extremely effective, brave act. Two banner holders moved behind the black car so that it could not back up.
Toby Blomé lies down in front of a black sedan.
While lying on the ground, Toby talked to the five or six MPs now gathered about the dire conditions in Gaza, including the slaughter of thousands of children. She implored them to recognize their complicity and urged them to educate themselves on the US role in the genocide.
Most of the MPs were very young, and several seemed troubled by what Toby was saying. One squatted down in front of Toby and attempted to persuade her to get up, unsuccessfully.
After what seemed to be about 15 minutes, all the MPs had disappeared. Toby got up, remaining in front of the black sedan. Two very aggressive drivers whizzed off the edge of the driveway to get past the blockade, speeding dangerously into the base. Toby, by now distracted from the exact location of the new blue line, urged several of us other blockaders to back up closer to the gate entrance to prevent other cars from entering and to avoid an accident.
At that point the MPs returned and arrested Toby. Taking her ID and handcuffing her, they escorted her onto the base. The “low-risk blockades” were still holding. About 35-40 minutes had passed by now.
At this point, three tall heavyset Otero County Sheriff’s deputies pulled up and swaggered over to two blockaders holding a banner. One of the deputies angrily tore the banner away from the two and threw it on the ground. This surprised the deputy in charge of the detail who told the angry man to step back, and a third deputy held him by the arm to restrain him.
The sheriff’s men told us to get out of the driveway or get arrested, and we moved to the side of the driveway.
Toby, still being detained just inside the base gate, continued to try to educate the MPs, giving them sources for reliable news and information and of support for GI resisters. She was soon cited and released, having been charged with trespassing on federal property and told that she would be notified by mail of a court hearing. Toby joined the other protesters, and all but two, who stayed at the west gate, continued their vigil at the main gate for the remainder of the morning commute.
As the pair staying at the west gate held their banner, a driver exiting the base stopped, rolled down his passenger side window, and said words to the effect, “I want you to know that not all the people on the base agree with what is happening in Gaza.”
The next day, when Toby went into the office of nearby Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, where most of the protesters were staying, a woman staffer told her, “You guys are all over the internet, and people are not happy.”
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