He and kathy worried about the reach of the department of homeland security, its willingness to contact anyone born in or with a connection to the middle east. so many of their muslim friends had been interviewed, forced to send in documents and hire lawyers. but until now zeitoun had been fortunate. he had had no experience with profiling, hadn’t been suspected of anything by anyone with real authority. there were the occasional looks askance, of course, sneers from people upon hearing his accent. maybe, he thought, this was just one soldier, ignorant or cruel, wanting to stir things up. why does the author include these details?