After attacks, teens question future Some eager to join military; others seek ways to help victims of terrorism

PORTLAND – As America launches military strikes in Afghanistan, teen-agers in Maine are thinking about their future in an uncertain time.

Tom Badger won’t graduate from high school for another year, but he’s already considering joining the Marines after graduation. The Portland High School junior never thought about signing up until he watched the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on television.

“I want to go. Seeing the video footage of the plane crash, it was the worst thing I’d ever seen, and I just want to get the people back who did that,” Badger said.

But John Knox, a junior at Portland High School, says he has no desire to fight in a war, and shakes his head when his friend Badger says he would willingly enlist.

“I’ve never been one to put myself in danger. Usually I try to run away, which makes this time so hard. You can’t run away,” Knox said.

Breanna Simpson, 16, a junior at Kennebunk High School, says students at her school are talking about what they would do if the government reinstitutes the draft.

She fears her brother and his friends eventually could be drafted.

“They’re right around the age, and it’s in the back of everyone’s minds. It’s kind of scary to think that they could be asked to fight,” she said.

Simpson belongs to a tight-knit youth group at First Baptist Church of Portland, and says she has found solace praying with her friends.

At school, she has worn red, white and blue ribbons handed out by a teacher, and asked the principal about starting a fund-raiser for attack victims and their families.

“It was terrible, standing and watching the news, seeing all those people I couldn’t get to,” she said.

Christina Aliardo, a Portland High School senior from Sudan, says she and her family are more aware of changes in the government following the Sept. 11 attacks.

“It’s very hard for some of us to get a green card or a passport. There is a very long process because they are just trying to be more careful,” Aliardo said.

Aliardo says she has noticed immigrants in the community are trying to police themselves.

“Any mistake you make, they could make you could go home. You don’t want to lose your citizenship,” she said.