Oral History Program Jordan Whitaker Interviewed by Jonathon Call 29 April 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jordan Whitaker Interviewed by Jonathon Call 29 April 2008 Copyright © 2014 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed Kelley Evans, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Whitaker, Jordan, an oral history by Jonathon Call, 29 April 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Jordan Whitaker. It is being conducted on April 29, 2008 and concerns life in Utah and on Weber State university campus over the years 2001 to present. The interviewer is Jonathon Call. JC: I am Jonathon Call, I am interviewing Jordan Whitaker at his house in Ogden Utah in University Village on Weber State Campus. Today is April 28, 2008 and it is 11:50. Mr. Whitaker, why don't you tell us what year you were born? JW: I was born in 1985 on March 9th. JC: Where were you born? JW: I was born in the wonderful state of Georgia in Augusta about fifty miles south of Atlanta, it's where all my family is at. JC: Did you grow up there? JW: I lived in Augusta, Georgia till I was about 9 years old and then we moved to Idaho. In Idaho, I lived in a little place called Cuna about forty miles north of Boise, out in the middle of nowhere. It’s got a lot of open land and all that. From there we moved out here to Utah and have been living here ever since I was about twelve years old. JC: So you went to high school here? What high school did you attend? JW: I was actually home schooled. I got kicked out of high school for fighting, so they said "No more of this, we had enough of this in junior high and elementary school. We're not going to deal with you anymore." So, the wonderful people at the Department of Public Schools kicked me out and my momma had to teach me. JC: So what types of things did you do for fun growing up in Utah? 1 JW: I always loved working on cars. I’ve had more cars than… since I was sixteen I've had 9 cars. I've rolled four of them over and all that good stuff. I love to fish. Fishing here in Utah is fantastic, I brought that with me from the south, and you got to love hunting and hiking, doing anything outdoors, shooting rifles is always a good time. Camping, just everything outdoors. Haven't been skiing though. JC: You've lived in Utah and never been skiing? Why? JW: I've just never had the money to do it. I've never had the inclination, I don't like being cold too much, I'm not a fan of the cold. JC: I agree with you, cold weather isn't very fun. Where are your favorite places to go fishing? JW: My absolute favorite place is Mantua Reservoir, up near Hyrum, well it's on the way to Hyrum. It's about half hour away from here. I take my little sixteen foot boat and my truck up there and sit out there and drink a beer and catch some fish, have a good time. I love to fly fish up there, catch the blue gills, they fight like none other. JC: You were being home schooled in 2001. I'm curious, what were you doing on September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Centers were attacked? JW: I was doing algebra II. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, practicing point slope form and I couldn't figure that out so I turned on the radio and I heard it. I thought at first it was a joke. I went downstairs and turned on the television. I remember seeing it, that was something else, I will always remember seeing that. My dad is an air traffic controller. He was at work at that point in time and he had actually called us about ten minutes after I turned on the TV, and that was something else. That's where I was. JC: So your family was there, too, with you? 2 JW: My mom and brother and sister were, my dad was at work. They were all there with me. It kind of shocked them too. They didn't seem quite as shocked as I did, my brother did though, but my little sister didn't seem to be bothered by it too much. JC: It was all kind of surreal. JW: It was, first time we had ever been attacked on our home land. JC: So, after you got your high school diploma what did you do? JW: My goal since I was nine years old was to join the army, so I decided to try to get into shape, and came up here to Weber State and talked to the ROTC, and I started with a couple of classes. I decided that the ROTC wasn't for me, didn't have enough hoo-ah, hardcore army stuff. So I enlisted into the National Guard back in 2005, I enlisted into the Guard on March 29, 2005. I went into the National Guard as a 13F forward observer in the field artillery for the 1-145 FA. When I went to basic training I shattered my leg and that kind of delayed my plans for a while, I was kicked out of the army for a while and was kind of going around as a mechanic. I came back to Weber State after a year and a half of healing and, being a private, I got back into the army and I came back here and went to school. Now I'm finally graduating after four years of college. JC: You wanted to be a part of the military ever since you were nine years old? JW: Exactly, it's in my journals. JC: I was curious, did September 11th effect your decision, like what job you took in the military, or getting into the military period, or had you pretty much made up your mind by then? JW: It forced me to go faster. When September 11th happened I was sixteen years old, I wasn't old enough to enlist in the military yet, as much begging and pleading as I asked 3 my mother, she would never sign for it. I had to wait till I was 18. It was more the fact that I needed to get up and do this thing because we're in a time of war, we had been hit, so it did help a little bit, it did spur me on. JC: You said you are attending Weber State? JW: Yes. JC: What degree are you pursuing? JW: I'm getting my degree in Bachelors of Science and History. I originally came here to get my degree in business marketing, and did that for about two years and decided that was going to take too long and I needed to get on with life, so I chose my second favorite field which is history and I've pursued it since. JC: Wow. I was wondering as a college student, when we had the Virginia Tech shootings about a year ago, how did those shootings affect your life on campus and what your feelings were that day? JW: I don't really remember the Virginia Tech shooting too well, I remember my fiancé was living out there at the time and she called me and we talked about it. She was pretty nervous about it. As for me, it never really bothered me because I always carry my handgun with me and it was more the fact that someone probably wished they had their handgun there because, I don't know, it could have been significantly changed. It has affected my opinion on legislation that needs to hurry up and get passed. There's a lot of schools out there right now that you can't carry (weapons). I prefer to carry because you never know when something like that's going to happen and it has affected my opinion on that. What was the other part of the question? JC: I was wondering how you felt about it before and after? 4 JW: As far as the shooting goes, I've been in the military long enough where hearing about someone I don't know passing away or getting shot at doesn't really bother me all that much anymore. If I don't know them it doesn't bother me too much. JC: So you feel pretty removed from the killings then? JW: I do. JC: Do you think it affected our life on campus? JW: It does, yeah. JC: Not just here, but country wide, throughout the whole United States? JW: It has affected the way that college students, especially here on weber state, I've been around America quite a bit. Utah is very naive, thinking that nothing ever bad is ever going to happen to them, but there is as much murder and crime here as anywhere else, especially here in Ogden. I used to live down on 12th street and police used to tell me they were afraid to go down to where I lived at night and so Virginia Tech helped Weber state by showing them that no one is safe from it. JC: Do you think it is a good thing that Utah allows concealed carry on university campuses? JW: I do, absolutely, because, like I said, you always need to be prepared. JC: Since you were talking about legislation and laws being passed, stuff like that, on the subject of politics, how do you feel about the Presidential race so far in 2008? We've got this whole female running for president thing, and African American slash Muslim, and the old POW, how do you feel about all that? JW: Well before we go any further I need to make clear that my opinions are mine and not anyone else’s, but don't much care for the fact that there is a female running, I won't be 5 voting for her, I don't think she would be good for the country, and I don't think America is ready for a female president. I don't think that, from my stand point, she would be willing to do what is necessary and use a show of force just like her husband wasn't willing to do that and try to be more diplomatic. John McCain doesn't seem to be able to get his facts straight, he's a little behind the curve on information gathering. When he was questioning General Patreas the other day he couldn't even come up with the correct questions to ask him. So it concerns me that if he were to get elected because he doesn't have professional knowledge. As far as Obama, his name rhymes with Osama and his middle name is Hussien. He would be the first black man in American history to be President, but I actually think Obama might be the best one for the country, but as far as race none of them seem to be that great to me so, it's a hard call, it really is. JC: Now that we have discussed the candidates, what do you think the biggest issues the country is facing today this election year? There is a lot of talk about the war in Iraq, that's a big deal, but there are other issues, what do you think the biggest issues are? JW: We need to get the gas prices down. I'm tired of paying almost four dollars a gallon. I remember back when I first learned to drive, gas was a $1.87, something right about there; it was cheap. Now it's almost $4 a gallon, over double the price. I remember I told myself I would stop driving my truck when it got to 2 dollars a gallon and now it's almost 4; I think that is ridiculous. I thought I would never see the day when gas was as expensive as it is. We got that issue, and of course the war. We need to figure out what needs to happen over there and make it happen. We need to implement our government or implement their own. Those are my opinions and so we have the 6 economy, we talked about the gas and the war, then of course our foreign relations. We're getting mixed up in a lot of things that we don't necessarily need to be mixed up in. We seem to get our hands binded a lot by the U.N. and we try to fit in with the U.N. a little too much sometimes. I would say that is an issue, but I haven't been keeping up too much on the Presidential Election, I've been way too busy with school. I should be more involved. JC: What year are you in school? JW: I am a senior. I graduate in three days. JC: Congratulations. What plans do you have after graduation? JW: After graduation I want to become a Field Artillery Officer in the United States Army. Hopefully get stationed in Germany, or overseas somewhere and then be deployed to a combat zone so I can earn a couple badges and experience that. It should be pretty easy to do that, I'm not extremely worried about it. After that I plan on putting about 10 years more in because I've already got three in so, I guess 12 years so I can retire after fifteen years. From there, I don't know. I'd like to open my own business maybe, but I might stay in (the military) it's hard to say. But short term, just be an army officer. If that doesn't happen I might join the DEA; that would be an awesome job. JC: DEA? JW: Drug Enforcement Agency. They go into urban combat about 300 days out of the year. JC: Sounds scary to me, too exciting. JW: I think it would be kind of fun. JC: It has potential. 7 JW: There's a lot of other opportunities, it's just good to have a degree because it opens so many doors and allows you to pursue other goals that wouldn't necessarily be open. I was a mechanic for a long time before I got my degree and I hope I don't have to go back to being a mechanic as much as I love working on my own stuff, I do not enjoy doing it on other peoples stuff. JC: You don't intend to go into a career field associated with your degree? JW: I don't, because the only one that's available with a history degree is teaching, and teaching is not exactly one of my strong points, I get agitated with stupid questions. I don't like high-schoolers and I don't like teenagers. I get way too agitated with them, they need to shape up. My brother is a high-schooler. I get so agitated with him it's not even funny. JC: You think there is that much of a difference between how you were growing up and just six or seven years younger than you? JW: I say there is a huge difference, also the teenagers here in Utah seem to have less respect for authority than people in the south. In the south we always call everybody "Yes sir, yes ma'am". You get a little more respectful when you talk to an authority, especially elders. I don't know, maybe it's just this generation, but the younger generation just seems to lack respect. JC: What do you think are the biggest factors in that? What do you think has changed in the last ten years? JW: The lack of respect I place a lot on the role models these children choose. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, Fifty Cent, none of them act like mature, responsible adults. They all just party and do their thing, then think that they have an opinion when it comes 8 to elections and stuff, so they need to realize that these are bad influences and find someone who is a good role model, someone like George Bush, someone like that. I would attribute the media, entertainment, music, TV, to the lack of respect that children have these days. JC: Media, television end electronics? I know when I was in high school I didn't have cell phones, text messaging, wireless internet and stuff like that. Do you attribute it to that as well? JW: I would. I would say that is a large factor in it. JC: Well, Mr. Whitaker, I appreciate the time you spent with us this afternoon. JW: Anytime. JC: That concludes our interview, thank you. 9