Nour: I used to wear fancy dresses and high heels. But, not anymore.

Nour: I’m 24. 24 years.

Interviewer (Matthew VanDyke): So you’re going to spend a good part of your 20s in war.

Nour: Yeah, yeah. I have to do this for my country. I have to give what I can give. It’s pretty important to let the world see what’s going on. You know, I think nobody knew Syria on the map before this revolution. And now everybody knows what’s going on in Syria and that’s because of the press covering what’s going on. That’s really important.

Nour: Somebody has to see all this. Somebody has to know what this monster is doing to us, and to his own people. And, I’m making sure that somebody is going to know. All the people in the world are going to see this, hopefully. See us suffering. See the civilians suffering. I mean, it’s not a way to do this. It’s wrong.

Interviewer (Matthew VanDyke): You just saw a man die 5 minutes ago. Do you worry that could happen to you?

Nour: You’re not thinking in this mentality anymore. This is something I have to do. I mean so many people, so many girls, died in the kitchen, like doing the dishwash or something, and they have like a mortar shell or shrapnel coming through the window, and they drop dead. So what’s the point? Why should I die cheap? So I have to go, I have to do this. I’m not afraid of death.

Mowya: Bashar. I am Omar Hattab. I am 32 years old. My nickname is Mowya. I was a civilian before the revolution started, but now I am fighting in the Free Syrian Army against the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Interviewer (Matthew VanDyke): I joke that I always keep one bullet left in my gun for myself.

Mowya: Yes, you must keep one bullet here in Syria. You keep it for yourself. It’s better than the regime catch you. I guarantee that way. You must keep one bullet. So you can die fastly.

Mowya: They tortured me very hard. There are too many kinds of torture. For example, one time they carried me, two men, one from my legs and the other from my neck, and they threw me up and down from the ceiling to the ground. The most bad thing is when you hear the sounds of the men being tortured, and you don’t know if you are the next or not.

Interviewer (Matthew VanDyke): What did they accuse you of?

Mowya: Yes, because I say freedom. It is a very big crime here.

Mowya: You know, they told us in the prison. Can you imagine another one can lead this country? Only Bashar can lead this country. And they believe it, they don’t say it like that. They believe it, that only Bashar Assad can lead this country. No one can lead it. Because he’s genius. You see, how he turned the country? Before that we oh, we feel bad, there is a lot of people in the streets, that’s no good. Look now, it’s empty! You can walk like you want. This is the genius, Bashar Assad.

Nour: You’re not safe anywhere. I’ve got my friend, she has been arrested, for so long. Last week we received that she is dead. Because she was tortured, raped. It makes me sick. I’d rather die. Really, I’d rather die than let them have me for five minutes.

Nour: Before this, all this, starts, before the revolution, I used to teach English, in school. And, really sometimes I think like it’s just, a nightmare, all this that I’m going through right now. If I go to sleep and wake up, everything will be fine, and I’ll go back to school and teach.

Interviewer (Matthew VanDyke): What about this building? Do you know what happened here?

Mowya: No one knows. And no one wants to know. You don’t know how many people lived there, and there. And they have dreams, they have their lives. They laughing sometimes, they crying sometimes. All that’s end now. All that end.

Mowya: This is the center of the city, you know what’s the meaning, center of the city? Look. Can you imagine Wall Street like that?

Mowya: If the government comes by voting, no problem. What the people want, I will. I like the government, I don’t like it… but it must be democracy. Not from father to son.

Mowya: And the animals too, hate Bashar. Look, she feels safety here, with us. We’re not terrorists, like they say.

Nour: In this place, my friend died. It was the first time that he puts on a mask, on his face. Because he decided to be in the FSA. And nobody could recognize him. We’ve got one guy wounded, and he wanted to help that guy, but nobody could cross to that bleeding guy in the middle of the street because of the bullets all over the place, and the security forces. But he has the guts, and he went for it, and other guys got encouraged and ran to help him out. And he dragged the body, and his friends helped him. Once he got to that point, one bullet went through his chest, and he, he died. The funny thing is that our friend was standing in that corner, and, videotaping the whole thing. And he didn’t know that it was our friend, because he had his mask on. So the guys grabbed his body and tried to take him to the nearest field hospital. And they took off the mask. And it was him. And he just shouted, “Ehsan.” He was like my brother. He’s just 19. Too bad that they had to hold the responsibility as men, because they’re only teenagers. I’m not going to forget this boy. And I’m going to continue to fight, as he did. I’m not going to give up, even if I have to die, I’m going to do this.

Nour: Nobody had an idea about politics here, because we don’t talk about that. We’re not allowed to talk about politics really, even with our families. I cannot open a conversation about politics with my mother or father, because we’re just so much scared that somebody might overhear us, and the next day somebody might knock on our door and arrest the whole family, just for talking about politics. Syria is, is destroyed now. It’s true. It’s true. But now, we’ve got one thing that’s worthy. That we can talk, and express our opinions about anything. I mean, that’s really worth all this sacrifice. Because we had enough. From not being able to say how we feel, or what are our opinions. And not being able to participate in this country. And now, we can. We’re going to build this whole country again, from scratch, from zero. And, it doesn’t matter how long does this last. Or how much damage it’s going to be. Because, really, all the males and females of this country are willing to build it again, and even better than it was before.

Nour: Proud to be Syrian. Because Syria is going to be better, without that criminal. Yeah. It’s beautiful without this guy, running this country. So, we’re working on that. Yeah, we do.

Mowya: The animal, maybe this cat, is more important for the Americans than the Syrian people. Because, I’m sure, that the animals have rights in America, more than the people here. They don’t care about us. So what, maybe if you film three or four cats, and put it on YouTube, maybe one million will watch the video, will see the video, in one hour. They don’t care about the people.

Mowya: Maybe, after the Americans see that, they will find there are cats here in Syria. I hope they will help the cats. Maybe see, oh there are cats in Syria. So, let’s go help Syria. Don’t care about the woman, just care about the cat. At least the cat is an animal, it needs some support.

Interviewer (Matthew VanDyke): People have said this before?