Sunday, September 4, 2011

Bored UCLA Student Joins Libyan Rebels

by Spencer Ackerman

Bummed out by the end of summer vacation? Want to take the awesomest road trip evar? Not really bothered by the idea of conflict tourism or turning someone else’s struggle for freedom into your bar-stool anecdote?

Dude: you need to join the Libyan revolution!

Bradley Hope, a reporter covering Libya’s uprising, writes in Abu Dhabi newspaper The National that he recently made a curious discovery near An Nawfaliyah: Chris Jeon, a 21-year old University of California–Los Angeles math student. That’s Jeon in the picture above, very unsafely resting his rifle on the ground with the barrel pointed up while his new buddies crowd around. Spoiler: He doesn’t have any military experience.

Why’d he make the long trek from L.A. to L-iby-A? “It is the end of my summer vacation, so I thought it would be cool to join the rebels,” Jeon told Hope. “This is one of the only real revolutions.”

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