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[|Group F Interviews] Wrie-up: The greatest things remembered in history are often the worst things to occur. Each decade, it appears must face their own problems and enter into war accordingly. Although, sad as it may be, our generation, too must deal with a war. After two aircrafts hit the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 our nation was shocked and devastated at what had happened. Now, after entering a war our nation and others must still deal with these horrific events. We interviewed five different groups of people. Julia Tasedan’s sister-in-law, a young woman who is an immigrant. Dion Domurat’s grandmother who is a foreigner. Another foreigner, Jack Davis a teenager from Australia. Kyle Fopma’s father, a middle-class white man. Lastly, Evelyn Flores, a nineteen-year-old who is engaged to a U.S. Marine. Each of these people had a different perspective on the war and its affects on them and others they know. In other wars past, it seems as if the whole nation and world was captivated by every event, everyone knew someone involved. Our group has found, in this day of age, that it is no longer like this. Although, each of these people had their own perspective, only one of them seemed to be truly affected, the fiancée of a Marine. Bob Fopma, several times in his interview mentioned how it would probably affect him more if he knew someone involved in the war. Also, he mentioned how it would be different, perhaps, if you were over in Iraq where the war is occurring. In Jack Davis interview he talks of only being affected by the more vigourous security in airports, in his country and ours. In his interview, when being asked what he knew about the attacks on the Twin Towers he had forgotten what year they had occurred. Dion’s grandmother was also limitedly affected. When it was translated, we found she was only worried about her family living here in America. When Julia was interviewing her sister-in-law, she said several times how we the American's do not really know what is going on over in the Middle East. She mentions that we do not know if what the government is telling us about the war is really true, which is true. The only interviewee who was truly affected by the events of this war was Evelyn Flores. Her fiancée is a Marine who is currently fighting in Iraq. She was the only one of the five who had strong opinions on the war and who truly knew what was going on in the war, but only because she is close to someone involved. Listening to these interviews, we discovered that the only people truly affected by this war are the ones involved or close to someone involved. Julia’s sister-in-law was correct when she said we do not know what is really going on over there. When listening to the interview of Ms. Flores, I actually learned some things about the war that I never would have known about otherwise. Therefore we believe that, although 9/11 put our country in a scare at first, it has mostly been put aside in our daily lives. We as a country do not know much about what is really going on and as a majority are not really affected. Only the few people who are close to the men and women involved in fighting the war are truly affected and really know what is going on.

Final Transcript:

Well, like everyone I was shocked when it happened. I think I’ve been less affected than most people. I heard some people say that 9-11 was our Pearl Harbor, and I thought that was an overstatement. I thought Pearl Harbor totally changed our world, it sent millions of Americans into war; it changed everything totally. I think 9-11 was significant, but it didn’t have that kind of change. 9-11 caused us to think differently about terrorism in the world, but it wasn’t the dramatic kind of change that Pearl Harbor was. I think the war in Afghanistan was justified, it was an appropriate action for the crimes that were committed against us. In going after the Taliban regime, which is supportive of terrorism, and going against Al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden, where he lived and where he operated, so I think that was appropriate. I don’t think the war in Iraq was an appropriate response to 9-11. I think if we had wanted to go after the country that was the most dangerous, we would have gone after Iran; if we had gone off to the country that supplied most of the terrorists, it would have been Saudi Arabia; if it was the country that was the most supportive of terrorism, it would have been Syria. So I think Iraq was for other reasons. I don’t think it really had that much to do with 9-11, although 9-11 was used as a reason to go to war. The response to Afghanistan was a measured response. However, I feel like since then, we’ve gotten off track. I think we should have kept our resources against fighting Afghanistan, trying to get to the core of Al-Qaeda, trying to solidify a democracy in Afghanistan, and should not have gone into Iraq the way we did. I think before 9-11, you know we had our typical political situation where the parties were warring with each other, and 9-11 caused us, for six months or a year, to be in more unity, and that happens anytime you have a common enemy, that the country kind of comes together, and fights against the force which is trying to destroy us or wound us, and that was good to see, everyone kind of forgetting their petty differences and fighting against a common enemy, but that, of course, the last couple of years has fallen away, and now, if anything, it’s worse, in terms of the partisan rancor, and people on both sides of the political spectrum have used 9-11 now and Iraq for their own political agenda, and maybe not thinking so much about what is really good for America, or what is good for our position in the world, or the world. We went into nearly four years of world war, and that kind of thing has not been true for 9-11. Certainly, if you have a loved one in Iraq, your life has been very different. If you lost someone in Iraq, had someone wounded, your life has been very different. As terrible as the losses are there, they’re pretty small compared to the population as a whole, and so I think most people, myself included, have not had a whole lot of change in our lives really, from before 9-11. I think it’s important to realize that the United States //was// attacked by terrorists, and it was an act of war, and I don’t think it’s good for anyone to minimize what that was. But I think it’s important for us to strike back, and to strike back at the people who really initiated and planned that war, which is why I thought it was appropriate to fight against the Taliban, to fight against Al-Qaeda and those terrorists. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the people we’ve been fighting against in Iraq are not those people. Sure, they were in sympathy, and all felt positive about our undoing, but I think it’s important to strike back at the people who really planned this attack, and executed this attack, and financed this attack, rather than just a more convenient enemy.
 * Bob Fopma
 * Well, 9-11 has made us more aware of the threats to our country, the attacks right here around us. I think before we thought we were insulated, we could look at attacks in Asia or Europe from afar, and now we’re aware that attacks could happen right in our own country, right now.

Um, I think it affected just like, like how it affected me, it definitely created a fear of almost everything you can thing of, I mean, all the sudden, people are afraid of fly, they’re afraid of, you know, Middle Eastern people, or Muslim people, because they believe that all of them are terrorists. Um, they’re also afraid to go anywhere where there’s a big crowd because they believe that if you go to a place where there’s a lot of people, well then, terrorists are gonna attack again and you’re gonna die. Um, it definitely um, it make them think about like "Oh, I have to be very careful", they are more cautious, where as, before that, they didn’t care where to go, or find anywhere that’s a problem and now, all the sudden, it’s a big problem. I think he handled it alright, um, but honestly, I think, he, himself did not know how to, um, fit this problem, because it’s such a, a major thing and it’s a shocking for him knowing he is suppose to be the commander and chief and keeping everybody safe and all the sudden he looses, like, thousands and thousands of people with in like, couple hours, three hours it happened Um, I don’t think it did, because um, if it was justified I don’t think there’d be, they won’t be sending any more military personnels out there still hunting for Osama Bin Laden, which um, I dunno how many years it’s gonna take to find him and hunt him down but obviously, um, they probably don’t even know where he is even those they say they do. But um, they definitely hasn’t justified nothing, it’s still going on, you just never know when it’s gonna end. Um, I think it’s the same I don’t, I don’t think it’s justified either, I believe it has given the United States more problem, I mean, we already have problem in this country that we should be focusing on fitting and yet we went and, and you know and had war with another country and it created more problem, so now, um, we have to figure out another way to fix the problem outside so you kinda leave your own problem behind and then you definitely loosing your own people and I mean and all those mens out there women fighting for the country, we’re loosing all of them and everyday people are dying and we don’t and then we really don’t know what’s going on out there, just when the media tells us or what the governments are announcing and, and I know there’s more things going on then what we know. Um, not really, I don’t think it affected my life, you know it affected different things but not my life for sure. Ah, I try to live my life the fullest, ah, everyday, because you never know what’s gonna happen the next day, you know, just like the 9-11peoples living perfectly fine the day before 9-11 and then the 9-11 happens, you know, so many people are affected because , people loose their loved ones, um, friends, you know, and now they have to live their life worrying when is the next attack and what’s gonna happen, know with, with, with America Before the war, I don’t even know what they were doing, I mean, to them they’re practically kinda nonexistent I don’t really recall what was going on and what they were working on and what they were doing, and um, during the wars, I think they were to focused on fighting terrorists and that was they only thing they had in mind because, you know, terror were the one kill million, you know, thousands, thousands of our people, you know and that’s all they can think about it to hunt them down and to and to destroy all of them but personally I don’t think it’s possible to get rid of all terrorist because there are so many of them throughout the world and, um, I think our government should’ve focus on doing good things other then what they are doing right now, I mean there are other countries that definitely could take our help, for example, like Africa, there are so many people dying right now from diseases that could be cured you know it could be something simple like malnutrition and or diarrhea or I mean very simple thing that we could just go to hospital and get a medicine and then be cure for, where as, over there, people are dying from it because sanitation is so bad, they don’t have no funds and those are the type of countries that I believe the United States should help because we are, you know, so called "the powerful country" and, and instead of using like power in a different way, like fighting wars with other country, I think we should use that power to do good things and benefit not just us but other people Well, I was afraid and worried for my family because my family lives here. I have been to the twin towers on the 150th floor. Yes, I couldn’t sleep very well. I was so worried for my children. Also, you never know when another situation can happen again. The scary thing is that Los Angeles is a big city; it could be an easy target. Thai people are killed. Everyday someone dies. The Thai’s can’t do anything about it. Hostile Muslisms would shoot Thai people even though they don’t even know them. The Thai’s assisted the people in Iraq, giving them food and support. But Muslims from the South of Thailand (Malayasia) attack Thai’s for helping U.S. troops and Iraqi’s. 9/11 has affected me by um taking my fiancée to war, for one. I was a freshman when the 9/11 attacks hit so it didn’t really affect me personally until I met him. I knew why the Iraq war, it was due to our enemies in the Middle East, but it didn’t really hit me till I met my fiancée and saw what he was going through and many other Marines and, you know, it hurts, but. Well, I know a lot of Marines now, because of my fiancé, Jason Morrow, and I know how it’s affected them and their families and what 9/11 did to this country. What hatred they feel for the Afghanistan’s and the Iraqis, or Hodgies as they like to call them. Hodgies are sand niggers, as they like to call them. They don’t like them too much. But it’s actually affected a lot of people I know. I’ve actually had friends been shot, I’ve had friends been killed before. Umm, my fiancée has actually, after he’s been there he has post traumatic, not to bad, but, umm, but he’s afraid of even the firm alarm, the light because its red and it looks like a sniper. I had one Marine friend who’s been over there and he got discharged because of sever post traumatic. Umm, he thought his ex-boss was telling him to kill people and he actually had to go out of his room and sleep out on the cat walks of the ? because he swore up and down that his ex-boss was telling him to go kill everybody around him. Umm, one of my friends got shot in the mouth and he’s missing part of his tongue, part of his face and the whole bottom row of his teeth, and he got discharged, too. But he wants to go back, actually, to get revenge and get their guys. And, yeah, right now my fiancées over in Iraq, he just left Saturday. That was really hard, it’s his third deployment over there, which I don’t think is too right, umm, I mean, two times is enough but three times is insane. So that’s how it’s affected the people around me. You know with the Afghanistan’s, he did the right thing, they did attack us first, it was proven that he did attack us, umm Afghanistan, Bin Laden. You know I don’t really understand why they haven’t captured Bin Laden yet. And they have captured Sadam. With Iraq he started that Sudam had weapons of mass destruction and that he was making chemicals or chemical bombs for chemical warfare but that was actually never proven, umm, so going into Iraq wasn’t probably the most, the best thing for America, but for Afghanistan it was you know, better for us to go over there then Iraq. The Iraqi people didn’t do anything but Sadam actually tortures people, too. But that’s not why we went to war. So the justification for going to Iraq at first wasn’t necessary but Afghanistan ? that was more, you know, we needed to go to war with Afghanistan. But now were in a war on terrorism, too. We’re not actually at war we’re trying to find. Okay, the thing is, we’re not at war with Afghanistan or Iraq, Jason has told me. We’re actually policing Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to filter out the bad guys, things like that. So the wars over we’re just on the war of terrorism. Jason told me before. Well, the war in Iraq is justified because of the slaughter houses they have found in Iraq. The tortured people. I remember Jason telling me a story of how they went in to Faluta, at first and no one would talk to them or say ‘Hi, how are you? Thank you for being here’ but after they had the attacks in November of 2004, umm, after they killed about 10,000, umm, Insurgents and they let the people back into the city. After that they were like ‘Thank you, thank you, mister. Thank you Mister.’ All the kids would come up to them and say ‘Thank you’ and people would shake their hands and everything. So the insurgents have a great deal of influence on the people and they terrorize people. Umm, other things that the insurgents do, umm people who fight for the Americans and the insurgents find out about it, umm they will actually kill them when they go on leave, so Jason has told me he doesn’t really get to chummy with the Iraqi soldiers that fight with them just because many of them go home and they get killed. Because of the insurgents find out who they are and or they will go to people who have insurgents in their families and tell them if they have information on the soldiers or Americans or any position what so ever and they’ll tell them, umm, what Americans are doing, this and that, or we’ll kill you and your family. And they’ll give ? and the insurgents will kill them any way. So it’s not too good over there, not too much democracy at all. So yes I think there’s justification for going in there. Just because what there doing to try and help the people. The war in Afghanistan, I haven’t heard too much about Afghanistan as Iraq just because Jason has been over in Iraq three times and he’s never been to Afghanistan. Umm, the war in Afghanistan was defiantly justified after they had attacked us on our own soil. And they killed many people in the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. So the Afghanistan was justified, but they haven’t found Bin Laden yet. We found, umm, several Al Quida members but we still need to get Bin Laden which we haven’t got him yet. So, I don’t know if that’s a conspiracy which is what some people have been saying or what, so yeah the Afghanistan war is defiantly justified. Oh defiantly, umm, you know I met Jason right when the first attacks were going on. So you know it didn’t affect me too much, because it’s just ‘Oh, it’s a war yay!’ ‘Nothing will ever affect me, I’m not going to join any army or marines or Navy.’ And so, then I met Jason and my life just totally changed, I saw what they’ve been going through. You know, umm, their families, umm, the first deployment was very hard. Seven months away, sometimes he wouldn’t call for weeks and I would listen to the news and they would say ‘Thursday four Marines died today, twelve Marines died today’ and then I hadn’t heard anything from him so I would just freak out and wonder if he’s dead or not. Umm, so yeah the war has actually affected my life greatly, I don’t have my fiancée with me right now, he’s gone, to Iraq, again, umm, you know, and I'm never going to get use to him being deployed, obviously, but it’s his job so, you know. I knew he was a marine when I got with him and sop now that he’s a marine and I said ye to his proposal. And I’m still planning on marrying him. You know, I’m actually really worried about him just being over there, because there doing, I heard on the news a couple weeks ago that twelve Marines just dies. And when ever I watch the news with him when, umm he, they said that he started to cry and that affects me because I've never seen a grown man cry, but when he hears about that stuff it’s just so sad. And he called me last night at 4 in the morning, 3 o’clock over in Kuwait, in the afternoon, not the morning. Umm and he sounded so sad and that just tore me apart, too. And I cant cry in front of him because it makes him just worry about me and you know its just so hard, just for him to be over there, you know, I don’t know if he’s going to die. You know what, I know some of my friends are going to come home hurt or dead, and that’s really hard to comprehend that you know somebody so well and they can come home in a body bag. Or they can come home with half their face missing or no arm or no leg and if this war had never started I wouldn’t have to deal with, you know, ‘well one of my friends might die.’ You never think that. So the war has changed me and my life a lot. I know that, um, it was a terrorist attack with two aircrafts running into the World Trade Center and making them collapse in two thousand and...one. Um, yeah, it has, it’s changed hoops, the security is way better now then what it used to be, um, more baggage, more baggage searching and more customs, so they’re really strict, more strict. Um, yeah, it’s pretty much the same as ours, they are strict as well because you got things coming in and out of the country and you’re never sure what could happen, so yeah. Um, at the start I think he handled it well, but he sent the American troops to Iraq to defend the country and that wasn’t a really good idea cause, you know, they’re trying to get back at them again, so…Um, no because, like, the troops shouldn’t be there, at all, they shouldn’t be in there, they should have done that ages ago because, casue, it’s over and, um, it’s a long time ago, so, so yeah, yeah I thought they shouldn’t be there and they shoulda gone out there ages ago, they should end, yeah so they should have peace again, yeah
 * Hisato Asato**
 * Kun-Dang**
 * Evelyn Flores**
 * Jack Davis**
 * Jack Davis**
 * Jack Davis**