Christopher Jeon, a 21-year-old Math major at UCLA, calmly declared, “It is the end of my summer vacation, so I thought it would be cool to join the rebels.”
In a daring or foolish—depending how you look at it—decision, Jeon boarded a one-way flight from Los Angeles to Cairo. The fearless student then traveled by train to Alexendria and after a series of circuitous and sketchy bus trips, wound up in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Once in Benghazi, Jeon hitched a ride with his newly acquainted rebel friends heading west towards the war-stricken Libyan capital of Tripoli. Following a 250-mile trek across the desolate lands of North Africa, Jeon found himself in the town of An Nawfaliyah.
The toast of his fellow rebels, Jeon, the newly anointed freedom fighter, is setout to partake in the most tumultuous effort in the world today. Although Jeon has yet to see action, the college boy is eager to stake his claim. When reporters and various media outlets first met Jeon, they found the young man clutching an AK-47, while excitedly screaming, “How do I fire this thing!” Locating the trigger and switching the assault rifle off the safety, Jeon fired it in the air in multiple bursts. “I want to fight in Sirte!” he shouted.
Even if the rebels cannot understand his battle cries (Jeon does not speak Arabic), they feel his enthusiasm and passion towards the effort. Such a sentiment; however, is probably not duplicated by Jeon’s parents, who remain uninformed to their son’s rebellious fever. “If I get captured or something, I don’t want to waste another $800 on the plane ticket. Whatever you do, don’t tell my parents. They don’t know I’m here,” he pleaded.
