Reporter Talks About War Stories In Syria

Pinion+reporter++Althea+Cunningham+gets+feedback+from+Star-Advertiser+reporter+Kevin+Knodell.

Pinion reporter Althea Cunningham gets feedback from Star-Advertiser reporter Kevin Knodell.

Jerome Linear

Kevin Knodell is a reporter for the Star-Advertiser and has been working with The Pinion staff. He shared some defining moments of his time traveling as a reporter in various places.
Knodell visited Syria twice as a freelance writer. Between the visits the Turkish army invaded. He said that before the Turkish army invaded, Syria was pretty stable but when he went back after the invasion, the mood was completely different and said he saw much more violence and hopelessness.
¨I think they realized that they were going to have a lot more war and that they weren’t going to know peace any time soon,” he said.
During his time in Syria, he was also near a bombing in a city in Syria. It happened a few blocks away from his hotel. During his time there, he said that he saw a mixture of Turkish troops, American troops, Syrian regime fighters, and mercenaries.He said that they had gotten through the worst of it by defeating ISIS, but he said that many people were worried because the Turkish army was putting troops all along the border and they felt like an invasion was coming.
“There was kind of a mixture of Turkish troops, American troops. Syrian regime fighters were out there I saw them a little bit and saw their flag. And there were also just a bunch of mercenaries that the Turkish army had hired, Syrian refugees who were fighting for them,” he said.
Turns out he wasn’t doing much writing during his time in Syria but more interviewing. After he came back from Syria, he started to write.
“I was interviewing people and taking notes and recording interviews and taking pictures whenever I could, like doing all that kind of thing while I was out there,” he said.
He had many experiences in his time in Syria and learned from them. He also learned a lot about Syria in general.
“I think they were deeply disappointed in the United States and the U.S. government after that happened,” he said.
He currently lives in Hawaii and enjoys it here. Although he misses the winter and the long drives on the mainland, he still quite loves the scenery of Hawaii and how different Hawaii is from the mainland.
“The weather is way different. I love being able to go to the beach,” Knodell said.