A great story!

The AP writes a story of an amazing US teen who ran away from home during Christmas vacation....to Iraq. Farris Hassan who is of Iraqi descent, ran away from his Florida home to practice "immersion journalism" in Iraq, apparently going above and beyond a school assignment. Read the whole story! Warning! This story was written by AP writers so there is quite a bit of editorializing about how it was "stupid of him to go because it's a dangerous QUAGMIRE over there". But even they can't hide this boy's facinating story.

I want to get a copy of the essay he wrote where he describes his reasons for going and his findings:

"He said he wrote half the essay while in the United States, half in Kuwait, and e-mailed it to his teachers Dec. 15 while in the Kuwait City airport.

'There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction,' he wrote.

'Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice's call for help. Unfortunately altruism is always in short supply. Not enough are willing to set aside the material ambitions of this transient world, put morality first, and risk their lives for the cause of humanity. So I will.'

'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.

'You go to, like, the worst place in the world and things are terrible,' he said. 'When you go back home you have such a new appreciation for all the blessing you have there, and I'm just going to be, like, ecstatic for life.'"

His decided lack of nuance and moral clarity is very refreshing, however I can completely understand his mother freaking out. I hope he gets to go back and volunteer over there. Maybe he'll start a blog! That would be wonderful.