Sixteen year old Farris Hassan went on a secret Christmas vacation excursion -- to Iraq.
It begins with a high school class on "immersion journalism" and one overly eager - or naively idealistic - student who's lucky to be alive after going way beyond what any teacher would ask.
As a junior this year at a Pine Crest School, a prep academy of about 700 students in Fort Lauderdale, Hassan studied writers like John McPhee in the book "The New Journalism," an introduction to immersion journalism - a writer who lives the life of his subject in order to better understand it.
So off he went. His journey took him from Miami to Amsterdam, Kuwait City, Beirut, and finally Baghdad where he is at this moment, developing his journalistic skills.
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.
I hope he stays with this journalism thing. He'll be a refreshing change from those reporters who feel duty bound to bash things American in general and Republican in particular.
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