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Friday, December 30, 2005
American teenager in Iraq
Now this is an incredible story about an American teenager who flew off to Iraq over Christmas break for a class assignment:
The next trimester his class was assigned to choose an international topic and write editorials about it, Hassan said. He chose the Iraq war and decided to practice immersion journalism there, too, though he knows his school in no way endorses his travels.
"I thought I'd go the extra mile for that, or rather, a few thousand miles," he told The Associated Press.
Using money his parents had given him at one point, he bought a $900 plane ticket and took off from school a week before Christmas vacation started, skipping classes and leaving the country on Dec. 11.
Read the whole thing because it's amazing the things this kid did. I realize his parents were pulling every strand of hair out but I really do admire the reasons he did this and what he hoped to gain. It was extremely risky and some would say idiotic, but his motivation gives me hope that not every American kid is hopeless:
"I want to experience during my Christmas the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience everyday, so that I may better empathize with their distress," he wrote.
Farris Hassan says he thinks a trip to the Middle East is a healthy vacation compared with a trip to Colorado for holiday skiing.
Posted by Will at December 30, 2005 12:56 AM in In the News