MAHONING VALLEY Possibility of going to war grips area students

Several acknowledged they are scared.
By RON COLE
and JoANNE VIVIANO
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS
J.R. Jackson, 17, a junior at Lisbon High School, came home from school Tuesday and talked to his mother about something he hoped he never would have to: going to war.
"Being 17, I've been thinking about how in one year, I could be going to war," said Jackson, a member of Lisbon's cross country team, after a day of watching terrorists attack New York and the nation's capital.
"It kind of hits you just all of a sudden. One day, everything's going along just fine and then you turn the TV on and everything's catching fire and airplanes are wrecking and it kind of is just a shock. It's kind of hard to get a grip on."
Jackson said he doesn't really expect war to break out.
"But if it does, I suppose we would be the ones to fight it, my age group, and I don't think a lot of people really realize that," he said.
"In school today, a lot of kids were just happy to get out of football practice and all of that. But I think in a couple days once you think about how serious this could be, then it may start to catch on."
He said he was scared.
"I always just planned on graduating from high school and struggling to get into college and going about my life," he said. "I never considered having to fight a war."
Jackson's fears were echoed by other young adults in the Mahoning Valley.
Cardinal Mooney senior Shawn Hankinson said he was stunned and surprised and a little scared. If the country goes to war, he said, he turns 18 in February. He said patriotism was still alive among students at his school.
Motivation: "Some people want to do it though because they're mad about it. They bombed our country," Hankinson said. "It's like if someone robbed your house."
Ursuline High School junior Nicole Rogenski, 16, said students all day were uneasy as they considered the possibility of a war, a draft and people they know going to war.
"Just the thought of going to war, you just read about it in history books as something that happened so long ago," she said. "Now it's a possibility. People we know could have to go through it."
Kellie Alexander, 16, a junior at Chaney High School said students at her school, too, worried if there might be a war and a draft.
"They were scared they'd be drafted, and they wanted to graduate first," she said. "There was a lot of conversation about that."
"I was just speechless," said Adam Marchionda, 21, of Boardman. "I don't know what to think about it. It made me feel real uneasy. I never thought anything like this could happen."