Teen's journey to Iraq reckless, but motives were noble

It was the novelty story of the week. A 16-year-old Florida boy runs away to Iraq without telling his parents.

The story of Farris Hassan, the Florida prep-school teen who managed to get himself all the way to Iraq before anyone could figure out where he was, intrigued people. How could anyone be so foolish? Didn't he know how dangerous it is over there?

While the story generated a great deal of discussion from columnists, bloggers and folks around the water cooler, I took note of the fact that most observers had no idea what may have been going through the young man's head. I think, at least in some way, I do. And if Farris was foolish, then 25 years ago I was, too.

In October 1979, the first survivors of the Cambodian genocide were breaking through the minefields on the border into Thailand, to the attention of the international press. I was a senior in high school in Connecticut, and the pictures of human suffering in the newspapers and on television overwhelmed me.

Within months, at the age of 17, I had secured a U.S. passport, scraped together my life's savings and purchased a one-way ticket to Thailand. I arrived in Thailand in March of 1980 with $70 in my pocket.

Against all odds, the in-country director of a small aid organization took pity on my sincere but naive motives, and placed me with his team in a small refugee camp at the southern tip of the Cambodian border. In contrast to Farris Hassan's experience, the U.S. Embassy there did not send me home. Three months after my arrival, it hired me to be a field caseworker in the U.S. refugee- resettlement program.

In Farris's essay on why he did what he did, he sounds remarkably sincere and idealistic. If that is a crime, perhaps we need a few more such criminals.

"(D)ecent individuals must answer justice's call for help, so I will," he wrote. "Life is not about money, fame, or power. Life is about combating the forces of evil in the world, promoting justice, helping the misfortunate, and improving the welfare of our fellow man." Later in his essay he wrote, "I know I can't do much. I know I can't stop all the carnage and save the innocent. But I also know I can't just sit here."

That last quote is eerily close to words I wrote to my family in my crude effort to explain why I had undertaken such a risky voyage. Twenty-five years later, my maiden journey from home remains the most misunderstood but most celebrated story of my life.

After my initial nine-month tour, I returned to the United States to pursue my education, later returning to work with the refugee program on three more tours. I eventually entered medical school and trained in international health.

I continue to work with the incarcerated and the institutionalized, and am an advocate for human rights, currently working with Physicians for Human Rights in the Campaign Against Torture.

Already, the novelty of the Farris Hassan story is fading. But after chuckling at the absurdity of the adventure, how many people have stopped to reflect on his motives and his ambitions? In a country where so many young people are oblivious of the suffering of people beyond our borders, and so many others feel impotent to act, the fact that he even cared, and then acted, means something.

Of course, what he did was reckless and irresponsible. But that's not news. Teenagers make reckless and irresponsible decisions every day, most often in pursuit of amusement.

So, is this Hassan kid crazy? Maybe just a little bit. But as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." I, for one, want to see where this kid is 25 years from now.

Dr. Scott A. Allen, a clinical assistant professor in the Brown University medicine department, is a Medicine as a Profession physician-advocacy fellow with Physicians for Human Rights.

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