Iraq War Military History - Battle of Fallujah

The Second Battle of Fallujah was fought November 7 to 16, 2004, during the Iraq War (2003-2011). Lieutenant General John F. Sattler and Major General Richard F. Natonski led 15,000 American and Coalition troops against approximately 5,000 insurgent fighters led by Abdullah al-Janabi and Omar Hussein Hadid. Background Following escalating insurgent activity and Operation Vigilant Resolve (First Battle of Fallujah) in the spring of 2004, U.S.-led Coalition Forces turned fighting in Fallujah over to the Iraqi Fallujah Brigade. Led by Muhammed Latif, a former Baathist general, this unit ultimately collapsed, leaving the city in the hands of the insurgents. This, along with the belief that insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was operating in Fallujah, led to the planning of Operation Al-Fajr (Dawn)/Phantom Fury with the goal of retaking the city. It was believed that between 4,000–5,000 insurgents were in Fallujah. The Plan Located approximately 40  miles west of Baghdad, Fallujah was effectively surrounded by U.S. forces by October 14. Establishing checkpoints, they sought to ensure that no insurgents were able to escape the city. Civilians were encouraged to leave to prevent being caught in the coming battle, and an estimated 70–90 percent of the citys 300,000 citizens departed. During this time, it was clear that an assault on the city was imminent. In response, the insurgents prepared a variety of defenses and strong points. The attack on the city was assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF). With the city cordoned off, efforts were made to suggest that the Coalition attack would come from the south and southeast as had occurred in April. Instead, I MEF intended to assault the city from the north across its entire breadth. On November 6, Regimental Combat Team 1, consisting of the 3rd Battalion/1st Marines, 3rd Battalion/5th Marines, and the U.S. Armys 2nd Battalion/7th Cavalry, moved into position to assault the western half of Fallujah from the north. They were joined by Regimental Combat Team 7, made up of the 1st Battalion/8th Marines, 1st Battalion/3rd  Marines, the U.S. Armys 2nd Battalion/2nd Infantry, the 2nd Battalion/12th Cavalry, and 1st Battalion 6th Field Artillery, which would attack the eastern part of the city. These units were joined by about 2,000 Iraqi troops as well.   The Battle Begins With Fallujah sealed, operations began at 7:00 p.m. on November 7, when Task Force Wolfpack moved to take objectives on the west bank of the Euphrates River opposite Fallujah. While Iraqi commandos captured Fallujah General Hospital, Marines secured the two bridges over the river to cut off any enemy retreat from the city. A similar blocking mission was undertaken by the British Black Watch Regiment south and east of Fallujah. The next evening, RCT-1 and RCT-7, backed by air and artillery strikes, commenced their attack into the city. Using Army armor to disrupt the insurgents defenses, the Marines were able to effectively attack enemy positions, including the main train station. Though engaged in fierce urban combat, Coalition troops were able to reach Highway 10, which bisected the city, by the evening of November 9. The eastern end of the road was secured the next day, opening a direct supply line to Baghdad. Insurgents Cleared Despite heavy fighting, Coalition forces controlled approximately 70 percent of Fallujah  by the end of November 10. Pressing across Highway 10, RCT-1 moved through the Resala, Nazal, and Jebail neighborhoods, while the RCT-7 assaulted an industrial area in the southeast. By November 13, U.S. officials claimed that most of the city was under Coalition control. The heavy fighting continued for the next several days as Coalition forces moved house-to-house eliminating insurgent resistance. During this process, thousands of weapons were found stored in houses, mosques, and tunnels connecting buildings around the city. The process of clearing the city was slowed by booby-traps and improvised explosive devices. As a result, in most cases, soldiers only entered buildings after tanks had rammed a hole in a wall or specialists had blasted a door open. On November 16, U.S. officials announced that Fallujah had been cleared, but that there were still sporadic episodes of insurgent activity. Aftermath During the Battle of Fallujah,  51 U.S. forces were killed and 425 seriously wounded, while Iraqi forces lost 8 soldiers with 43 wounded. Insurgent losses are estimated at between 1,200 to 1,350 killed. Though Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was not captured during the operation, the victory severely damaged the momentum the insurgency had gained before Coalition forces held the city. Residents were allowed to return in December, and they slowly began rebuilding the badly damaged city. Having suffered terribly  in Fallujah, the insurgents began to avoid open battles, and the number of attacks again began to rise. By 2006, they controlled much of Al-Anbar province, necessitating another sweep through Fallujah in September, which lasted until January 2007. In the fall of 2007, the city was turned over to the Iraqi Provincial Authority.

Inequality and Constitution - 2635 Words

Liberty, as defined by the Oxford dictionary, is explained as the condition of being free from restriction or control; the right and power to act, believe or express oneself in a manner of one s own choosing. Liberty is a word familiar to most Americans, since the fundamentals of the country is based on freedom and independence. Symbolism of liberty (such as the national s flag, statue of liberty, the liberty bell, Uncle Sam, the bald eagle) can be seen throughout the United States as a reminder of the freedom in which this nation has achieved for over the past two hundred years. Perhaps one of the greatest achievement of liberty by the Americans in the past two hundred years has been the founding of the United States Constitution.†¦show more content†¦First, let s examine the contents of the United States Constitution. The opening line of the constitution states as follows, We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. This simple introduction to the constitution holds many proposition of the union; it claims that the states are joined together in unity and that no, one state is independent from another. It is true that the beginning line already brings the nation together as one, but by saying We the people it is empowering the people of the United States as a source of power for ruling, not the authorities of the state. However, the people of the United States had no say in many aspects of politics in the past and even in the present day. A perfect example can be seen in the Gore/Bush election, where Gore had the majority of the people s vote for presidency, but through discrimination, corruption, and internal affairs, Bush proceeded to be President. Another contradictio n in that opening statement is ...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of LIBERTY to ourselves and our Posterity...Show MoreRelated Inequality and Constitution Essay2599 Words   |  11 Pagestwo hundred years has been the founding of the United States Constitution. Not only does the constitution deal with the distribution of government powers, but it proclaims the freedom of all individuals, abolishing slavery. Although freedom is technically set to the slaves by the constitution, but it did not fully fulfilled the description of â€Å"liberty† for the slaves. 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Ethics In Management Essay Example For Students

Ethics In Management Essay What is the status of ethics in management? This is a very hard question to address in a two to three page paper because there is no definite answer. As with many society-wide concerns, ethics runs the entire spectrum of behaviors; from Wal-Mart being very customer oriented and a friend of charity to those fly-by-night repair scams that tend to prey on the elderly. When does a business cross the line from making a profit to stealing a profit? That is a hard line to gauge. Laws are designed to make that line a little clearer but laws cant out think the mind of man. If a way can be thought of to make money it already has been or is being thought of. Its where people are taken advantage of that we need to worry. There are many business in place that simply prey on the people who dont know any better. Whether its the feature on Prime-Time that shows elderly people tricked into phony home repairs or the local business that offered a friend of mine a computer at an inflated price with an o utrageous financing plan, some business practices are unethical. What I will focus on today is not the clearly right or the clearly wrong but that vast amount of items that are in the middle. Looking at more of a gray area, Wal-Mart is generally viewed as an ethically company but even they have a reputation for unfair competition. Wal-Mart has a marketing plan that targets smaller cities with large-volume discount stores. While this may not appear to be unfair on its face, many people have felt its negative effect. When Wal-Mart moves into a market, many of its smaller competitors go out of business. Small business in small towns cant compete with the prices, availability, or selection of a huge conglomerate like Wal-Mart. People in the towns dont have much of a choice. Pay more for less or pay less for more? Not are hard decision. But the ultimate effect is that many small business cant survive the competition. Is that ethically wrong? That is a very hard call to make. I recently had an experience of buying a new car. I shopped around Altus and also in Florida while on a recent trip. I was in the market to buy a Ford Explorer. The prices seemed to be about the same in these two markets. My wife and I decided to drive to Oklahoma City to look further. When we got there, the first dealership that we saw had over thirty Explorers on the front lot with a recent shipment of more in the back. Compared to the Altus dealership which had two. Immediately, I noticed that the price at that dealership was $1,300 less than the same model with the same package in Altus. Both stickers said the price quoted was the manufacturers suggested retail price. Already over $1,000 to the good, we decided to look further. We found four Explorers that had an additional mark down of $2,000. This was because of an engine style in the process of being phased out that had an additional rebate. Looking at the two different model from Oklahoma City and Altus, we!would save $3,300 by buying here. We decided to look no further. We selected the color and bought our car. Overall, we had a very pleasant experience but what about the people who buy from the Altus dealership and spend over $3,000 more? Are they being unethically taken advantage of? Thats a hard call to make. I teach an equal opportunity class on base and during that class someone inevitably brings up car prices in Altus as being unfair. Are these prices unfair or is it just the law of supply and demand? Two thousand dollars that I saved in Oklahoma City were because that model car wasnt available to the dealership in Altus. That difference can be easily excusable. The other $1,300, I have a harder time with. I took detailed notes and both stickers were basically identical with the exception of price. Each indicated a different manufacturers suggested retail price. Ethically, I think the line has been crossed. There cant be two different manufacturers suggested retail prices for the same car. One ha s to be wrong. I had a good experience buying this car but not ever!yone will. Ive been to the dealerships in the past that have used those high pressure tactics to coerce people into buying or spending more than they can afford. Those are the kind of ethical issues that cant be legislated. .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b , .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .postImageUrl , .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b , .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:hover , .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:visited , .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:active { border:0!important; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:active , .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uaa3e606e128ff4776b09a3b161dbdc8b:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight EssayReading through the ethics cases reminded me of my car buying experience because just like in the cases, there is no clear cut answer. In ethics, one would think that there is right and wrong but in real life cases of ethics in business there is not. There is no black and white answer only millions of shades of gray. Given the case of junk faxes, what is so wrong about sending an unsolicited advertisement to someone. I get them almost every day in my mailbox. It seems like a reasonable response but the differences are great. The junk fax ties up an important communication tool of the company and the costs are split between the sender an d the recipient without the recipients permission. The cost to the sender is simply the cost of a telephone call. While the cost to the recipient is the cost of paper, ink, and power to receive the call in addition to the loss of use of the machine during reception. I wouldnt want to get junk mail in my mailbox, if I had to pay for it!. I dont like it much even when I dont have to pay for it. But is this practice of junk faxing wrong? I say no. Ethically, I feel that its not wrong if the faxes are reasonable in length and company has a process to quit sending faxes if a recipient requests. I was the recipient of one junk fax. It came into my squadron office here on Altus Air Force Base. It was an advertisement to buy office supplies. Now there is no law, either civil or military, that prohibits this but I realized this isnt something that the Air Force should pay for. I took the fax to the legal office and they drafted a letter to request that it be stopped. They stated that if any more faxes were received, Altus AFB would no longer do business with this company. This was motivation enough for them not to do it. We never received another fax. With business, that is how the system must work. If the pursuit of the bottom line goes to far, then the bottom line must be threatened. I dont think there is anything ethically wrong with many business practices. Its all a matter of people being satisfied with the product that they are getting. If they are satisfied, the business will flourish. If not, it will suffer. That is probably the best way to measure ethics in management. Overall, I think the status of ethics is management needs some work. There are very good companies out there that charge a fair price to make a reasonable profit but there are many business in place that prey on the weak and poor.

Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Essay Example

Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Paper December 11, 2012 Section 1: Who is the one to delineate fault for a miscommunication and misunderstanding between two cultures? In Anne Fadiman’s novel, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, she begins the novel as an attempt to allocate responsibility for the mistreatment and exacerbation of Lia Lee’s epilepsy. The tension between the Hmong and United States medical culture exemplified the strain in America between a foreign culture dependent on rituals and society’s norm. As the novel progress, Fadiman realizes that neither culture is truly at fault. Lia’s situation stemmed from a clash of cultural beliefs and practices that could have been solved by a respect and empathy of the significance of cross-cultural communication. Throughout the narrative, there were characters that were able to be culturally empathetic while some were unable to appreciate the cultural differences between the two entities and realize the necessity for cooperation and understanding. The Hmong have a saying that they repeat at the beginning of every story, â€Å"Hais cuaj txub kaum txub,† which means, â€Å"speak of all kinds of things† (Fadiman 13). These words depict the belief in the Hmong culture that the world is full of things that might not appear related but actually are. This concept relates to the Hmong’s history. Their development as a culture is tainted with inconsiderate counter cultures that restricted their freedom to practice their cultural rituals. This greatly influenced their ability to trust cultures that are not their own. Their general distrust in any culture different from their own can be mainly traced back to the Chinese and Indochinese portion of their saga. We will write a custom essay sample on Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Basically, the Hmong have been chased out of any home they have ever had due to their unwillingness to take orders, their affliction to losing and the imperative detail that they would rather flee, fight, or die than surrender. This all boils down to the fact that they are not easily swayed by other culture’s customs. This ethnocentric attitude has greatly attributed to the Hmong culture’s general distrust and distaste for any culture but their own. Lia’s parents, Nao Kao and Foua Lee, and much of the Hmong community were skeptical of trusting the â€Å"white people† in the medical profession and in the community. In fact, Lia’s case became the litmus test for Hmong community and turned out to be a deciding factor as to whether the Hmong community in Merced, California would trust the medical professionals when they found themselves at MCMC in a similar state as Lia. Despite this inherent distrust of any culture dissimilar to their own, the Lee’s were able to trust one CPA worker, Jeanine Hilt, who took the Lee’s case very personally. Jeanine made it her mission to fight the medical industry tyranny on behalf of the Hmong culture and became the only person to ask the Lees their opinion. Because of the language barrier, many medical professionals saw talking to the Lee’s as a lost cause to communicate with, which led the Lees to believe they were being taken advantage of. Jeanine was the only one who thought to ask how the Lees felt about how the doctors were treating Lia and their culture. Because of this openness to communication and genuine interest in their answers, she explained to the hospital how the Lees, and the Hmong culture, felt about Lia’s epilepsy and why they were running into to so many conflicts with the Hmong culture. Jeanine’s open approach allowed her to see what the barrier was between the Lees ad the medical profession. The Lee’s and the Hmong culture considered Lia an anointed one and her â€Å"illness† as a blessing rather than a weakness. In the Hmong culture, people born with epilepsy are believed to be the anointed ones and are destined to a life as a shaman. They call it â€Å"qaug dab peg,† or â€Å"the spirit catches you and you fall down. † People in the medical profession did not understand the concept of spirits and the importance of epilepsy for the Hmong. Jeanine was the only white person who adamantly fought for the rights of the Hmong. She was able to do this by the ability to effectively and cross culturally communicate. A similar problem occurred when the Lees refused to give their daughter her daily medicine regimen. Lia was taken away from her family and put into foster care. Jeanine fought to get Lia back to her family as her epileptic episodes became more frequent and dangerous. After she succeeded, it was Jeanine’s mission to educate the Lees, especially Foua, on the drug regimen and explain to her the importance of the drugs and to understand Nao Kao and Foua’s aversion to medicine. Hilt was the only person that took the time to listen to Foua and her concerns regarding the unnatural substances. And after Lia’s large grand mal seizure, she was the only one who tackled the problem of how the Hmong family was treating Lia’s developmental delays. Jeanine’s key to success was always keeping the lines of communication open between herself and the Lees and therefore between the Lees and the MCMC. In order to cross culturally communicate, Jeanine focused on a caring approach that was â€Å"culturally empathetic† and used the Lees daughter, May, as her translator. She did this because having another unfamiliar person in the room, especially a translater, would make the Lees uncomfortable and less open to effective communication. Hilt also took the time to get to know the Lees. She knew the names of all their seven surviving children and most importantly never abandoned Lia or her family even in Nao Kao’s darkest moments. As part of the Hmong culture, they are naturally very violent and are not deterred by being outnumbered. Nao Kao threatened a translator that came and told the Child Protective Services were taking Lia away. Jeanine understood the aversion to having someone’s child taken away and made sure the threats Nao Kao made didn’t affect the courts decision to let Lia return. Jeanine’s empathy was deepened by two factors. She understood the burden of a chronic illness because she had asthma. She also admired the connection and closeness of the Hmong families. She was deeply connected to this family and to this child so she harassed the government and the hospital until the Lees got what they deserved. This included a pediatric hospital bed for Lia’s last days at home. This led the Lees to hold Jeanine in high esteem and allowed for a trust that was incredibly hard to earn from the Hmong culture. While Jeanine took the time to understand the Hmong culture, Nao Kao, Lia’s father, did little to reciprocate. He greatly appreciated her attempt at being understanding, however he never believed it was his responsibility to do the same. Even then, Foua was usually the most receptive to Jeanine’s triumphs. Historically Hmongs have become the pariahs of society. With this in mind, Nao Kao never really made the effort to be part of a society that he knew went against his beliefs and therefore was rejecting him. It is also prominent in Hmong culture, that the man is the strongest part of the family and the most emotionally disconnected. While the Hmong were fighting the Chinese, they even killed their wives and children so they wouldn’t be emotionally distracted. Nao Kao hyper masculine attitude led him and his wife to be passively obedient. In the book, Fadiman writes â€Å"It was typical or Hmong patients to appear passively obedient – thus protecting their own dignity by concealing their ignorance and their doctor’s dignity by acting deferential – and then, as soon as they left the hospital, to ignore everything to which they had supposedly assented† (Fadiman 68). This is no way to effectively communicate between two cultures. By Nao Kao affirming that he would give the medicine and not at least trying to explain that it is against his belief and/or he does not understand how to give the medicine, he falsely gives the impression to the doctors that Lia will be cared for at home. Not only does not communicate that he will not give the medicine, but he also doesn’t communicate that he has not given the medicine to Lia when the Lees continue to take her to the hospital seizure after seizure. While the Hmongs believed being epileptic was a sort of blessing, they also understood the repercussions and knew the disease was at least semi-dangerous. That is the reason the Lees continued to take Lia to MCMC over and over again, despite their hatred for the medical culture and the inability to effectively communicate. However Nao Kao Lee was most definitely stuck in his ways. Fadiman explains a observation by Francois Marie Savina as to his first impressions to the Hmong in 1924. Savina, a missionary, stated â€Å"ethnic durability can be attributed to six factors: religion; love of liberty; traditional costumes; refusal to marry outside their race; life in the cold, dry mountainous areas; and the toughening effects of war† (Fadiman 208). The Lee family did little the acculturate themselves into the United States culture and came here to merely escape prosecution. When the Lees came to America, their relatives had to show them how the country worked. They relied greatly on their children. After Seventeen years of living here they still speak only Hmong and practice only Hmong traditions. The Hmong culture is famously stuck in its ways and it was no different for Nao Kao. The mixture between his role in his culture as well as the culture itself lends itself to the inability to communicate between the Lee family and the MCMC medical staff. The first thing that would allow two cultures, such as the Hmong and the United States medical culture, to effectively communicate is knowing what their core values, core distinction, and some key elements to their culture in regards to value dimensions. The Hmong’s value dimensions tend to fall on one extreme, while America falls on the other side of the spectrum. For example, in the Identity value dimension, the Hmong are highly collectivist, which means their core value is group harmony and their core distinction is whether you’re in group/out group. However, the United States population is based on individualist side of the identity spectrum. This means they believe in individual freedom and the core distinction is whether its me/others (Hofstede Pederson Hofstede 94-97). This has a large impact in how two cultures interact with each other because while the United States will believe that the Hmong should do whatever it takes to protect themselves while the Hmong believe they should maintain the peace with the gods or else they will be punished which focus’ on group harmony. The virtue value dimension also has a strong effect on the differences between these cultures. The Hmong are considered extreme long-term orientation, which values the long-term benefits. The US medical culture is more oriented on today’s effects, otherwise known as extreme short-term orientation (Hofstede Pederson Hofstede 109-112). This shows why the Hmong are so superstitious because they are worried about the futures of their children and even their grandchildren. The medical industry is not superstitious and therefore believes in saving the life that needs saving now and not later. They do not discriminate on between now and later. A lot of lessons can be learned from how Jeanine was able to effectively communicate between the Hmong and US medical cultures. First of all, it is important to be open to new ways of communication between cultures and to not only find similarities, but also understand the differences between cultures. The Hmong culture and the Medical culture in the United States seem on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum. In that brief period of Lia’s seizures being decreased and her seemingly getting better, the Lees understood that they had to give Lia her medicine regularly and the hospital understood why the Lees were hesitant about giving their child too many unnatural substances. When the two entities understood each other’s culture and cultural differences, Lia’s health improved and they were able to understand each other beyond the most basic level. This is called being culturally empathetic. Lia’s illness was a test for the two cultures. It was a situation that forced a broken system to recognize its faults and demonstrate how it needs to be fixed. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who worsened Lia’s illness because placing blame won’t help either culture understand each other. By the end of the text, as Fadiman is reflecting on the case, she writes â€Å"I do not know if Lia would be able to walk and talk today had she been treated by Arthur Kleinman instead of by Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp. However, I have come to believe that her life was ruined not by septic shock or noncompliant parents but by cross-cultural misunderstanding† (Fadiman 262). The MCMC has learned multiple lessons from Lia’s epilepsy. They learned to be culturally conscious, they removed the organ donor box from the hospital waiver and posted details about Lia’s case so her illness won’t be mistreated ever again. The key to communicating effectively is to realize that a culture is different from yours and value their judgments just as much as you value your own. Jeanine was able to do it, hopefully Nao Kao will one day do it as well as every doctor in the medical profession, and especially the doctors that are in heavily populated minority areas. Bibliography 1. Fadiman, Anne. The spirit catches you and you fall down: a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997. 2. Hofstede, Gert Jan, Paul Pedersen, and Geert H. Hofstede. Exploring culture. Yarmouth, Me. : Intercultural Press, 2002 Section II: Throughout my life, I have always been a person who loved traveling. I will always love traveling and someday, I hope to have a job where traveling is a requirement. When I travel, I hoped to come as close to emersion as possible in the time span I’m there. I believe interacting with other cultures can seriously give you a whole new outlook on life and learning perspectives of different cultures and humans always fascinates me which is why, next year, I am planning to take a year off to work at a bed and breakfast in France. People from all over the globe come to bed and breakfasts, which will give e a lot of face time with a lot of different cultures and learn a little bit about everything. My housing and dining will be paid for while I meet people, make lifelong connections and put all the things I learned about in cross cultural communication to work. Cross Cultural Communication opened up my eyes to some pretty basic things that you just never really put names to. The best lesson I learned was on cultural empathy. The idea that you don†™t only tolerate another culture, but you understand it at its most basic level is incredibly important in how you connect with other people. A lot of my best friends are actually international and live in other countries. One of my best friends ever lives in Greece and looking back on our friendship, I realize how I subconsciously underwent the process of cultural empathy by asking her about the different practices she went through and the different ways she understood American culture and society. Unfortunately, I did not do the same with my German ex-boyfriend who lived in Germany which probably could have saved a lot of grief on my end. Another lesson I found interesting in cross-cultural communication was reflexivity. Reflexivity is the ability and willingness of a researcher to acknowledge their bias. When I went to H Street, I realized my bias growing up in small town liberal suburbia. I realize my bias everyday when I meet people who grow up in different countries, parts of the country or even socio economic class. While interviewing Josh Parrish for my interview project, I saw how different our lives were and yet how similar we were. Reflexivity is not only important to acknowledge for reliable research, but for dependable relationships as well. Talking about white privilege really interested me throughout the course. Growing up as white, I kind of always resented the doors that automatically opened for me in some sense of the word. I can’t pinpoint why, but I like the challenge of overcoming adversity. In the School of Public Affairs Leadership Program, we talked about the idea of Privilege and Power and we watched an interesting TED talks that introduced the idea of â€Å"The Power of a Single Story. Acknowledging the different presets in society is important to society and to be able to communicate with each other. If I could change one thing about this class, it would definitely be about the reading. The readings were incredibly numerous and sometimes, I couldn’t finish everything, which led to a serious cycle of me falling incredibly behind. I would’ve loved for a way to cut down the re adings, perhaps only read important excerpts or something because the workload was either really hard or very laid back. The lessons I learned in cross cultural communication feel less immense than other classes, but I already notice how I look around and see how these lessons are applicable in real life. I constantly look back at my history and realize how helpful these skills would have been months and even years ago. Being culturally empathetic is the most important lesson I could have learned and I feel was the overarching theme to the whole course. I found it helpful to learn how to properly acculturate into a foreign culture and while I may not become a foreign diplomat because of this class, I definitely learned some important imformation.