Yaaaaaaah!! Not the DEATH ZONE!!!
Posted on 12/29/2005 2:07:32 PM PST by presidio9
Yaaaaaaah!! Not the DEATH ZONE!!!
Give the kid a little credit, it sounds like he learned
some lessons, AND he will kiss the ground when he lands in
the USA.
We were all dumbasses at 16. He was just dumber and luckier than most.
"Farris Hassan's Day Off"- coming to a theater near you.
lol
He probably was less likely to get into trouble than his contemporaries that borrow a bottle of bourbon and the car keys while their parents aren't watching.
C'mon, do you think any of the teenagers you know could have pulled off going to Iraq on their own? Hell, the ones working for me couldn't find their asses with both hands and a roadmap.
I think she's got a bit of work to do on her son . . .
He again called his father, who told him to come home. But the teen insisted on going to Baghdad. His father advised him to stay with family friends in Beirut, Lebanon, so he flew there, spending 10 days before flying to Baghdad on Christmas. His ride at Baghdad International Airport, arranged by the family friends in Lebanon
Family FRIENDS?!?!?!? And they didn't physically restrain the boy until his parents could come and fetch him?
His mother, however, sees things differently. "I don't think I will ever leave him in the house alone again," she said. "He showed a lack of judgment."
NOW she gets it. Shouldn't a psychologist have noticed a bit earlier on that her 16 year old son was not quite all there, and shouldn't be given thousands of dollars in cash to get himself in trouble with?
Cool stuff. If he really wanted a dangerous trip, he could have just wandered around Compton for a few days.
Is there not one brain cell amongst the entire bunch of imbeciles.
I have no trouble condemning the parents, 1) for giving their dangerously immature son thousands of dollars to play with, and 2)for not calling the State Department when the boy was on his way to the home of the family "friends" in Beirut. The U.S. Embassy in Beirut would have the kid on a plane back to Florida within hours of such a phone call, and the trip to Baghdad never would have happened.
For an American as stupid as this one, and totally unarmed and unprotected, yes.
Good for him. Kid recognizes that upper-middle suburbia is not the real world, and is not challenging him or teaching him. So he sets out in search of the lessons of the real world, screw the risk. He now knows that he has courage.
I would be proud to have him as my son; I would beat his young butt, however.
I'm not so far past 16 that I don't feel a little jealous of his "adventure."
I suppose he should have been happy with his karate lessons, organized soccer league, drama club, or whatever lame, over-organized activities kids are stuck with these days.
A story like this brings out a lot of emotions, especially as a father of an 18 y.o., but mostly I'm happy to see an American kid get out and DO something!
I believe you have a point, and I also suspect there's more than a little journalistic hyperbole in this article. One of FR's favorite writers, Mark Steyn, wrote about his visit to Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion and described how he safely and successfully rented a car and drove all over the country by himself.
That said, the kid made plenty of mistakes. It would have been much smarter for him to have entered through Turkey or Jordan into the Kurdish areas first, until he got his bearings and was a bit more familiar with the country. He could possibly have even made a friend of two there who would be willing to accompany him on his travels and help him navigate safely through the culture. Lots of possibilities come to mind. Glad he survived it.
During WWII, my Dad ran away and tried to join the Army 3 times before his parents finally consented to sign him in at age 15. And the Army took him! He retired after 20 years.
"Farris, you got some 'splainin to do..."
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