FARRIS HASSAN’S back-to-school essay for next term makes more interesting reading than most.

It tells why, at 16, he decided to sneak out of his Florida home and travel alone to Iraq — without saying a word to his parents.

The extraordinary journey ended in Paradise Square, Baghdad, with the naive teenager who cannot speak a word of Arabic wandering through the most dangerous streets in the Middle East — streets where his own country’s Marines venture only in armoured Humvees with swivel-mounted machineguns.

The seeds of the trip were sown in a lesson on “immersion journalism” earlier this year at Pine Crest School. Hassan, the son of an Iraqi couple who emigrated to the US three decades ago, decided to put theory into practice to broaden his mind.

On December 11, without telling his parents, he bought a £550 air ticket and took off for Kuwait. He then caught a taxi to the border, but fled when he was surrounded by a mob, nearly earning a punch in the face from the taxi driver infuriated at his reluctance to pay the £150 return fare.

There he wrote an essay saying he wanted to volunteer for the Red Cross in Iraq and e-mailed it to his teachers on December 15.

After calling his father, who told him to return home, he agreed to visit family friends in Beirut, where he spent ten days before flying to Baghdad on Christmas Day, travelling from the heavily fortified Baghdad international airport to an international hotel where Americans stayed.

He left the building only once, he later told officials, looking for food in the dangerous streets of central Baghdad, where insurgent sympathisers are everywhere and videos of Western hostage beheadings are on sale for less than a dollar each. At least forty American citizens have been kidnapped since March 2003, of whom ten have been killed and fifteen remain missing. Through dumb luck — or perhaps because Iraqis were too astonished to capture or kill him — he survived.

Realisation that he was out of his depth dawned after he walked into a food shop and asked for a menu, resorting to his Arabic phrase book when this proved fruitless. At that point, he later told his rescuers: “I’m like, ‘Well, I should probably be going.’ It was not a safe place. The way they were looking at me kind of freaked me out.”

He finally surfaced on Tuesday, walking into the Associated Press suite in the fortress-like Palestine Hotel, declaring that he was in Iraq to do research and humanitarian work. “I would have been less surprised if little green men had walked in,” said Patrick Quinn, the editor.

The agency called the American authorities, who arranged for him to be picked up by the 101st Airborne Brigade and spirited across the Tigris to the US Embassy, inside the heavily fortified green zone. There, bemused consular officials pointed out the dangers of travelling in Iraq. Last night the youngster was put on a plane to Florida — where he planned to “Kiss the ground and hug everyone” — in time to spend new year with his father Redha Hassan, a doctor, and mother Shatha Atiya, a psychologist.

“He thinks he can be an ambassador for democracy around the world. It’s admirable, but also agony for a parent,” she said last night, upon hearing of his safe delivery. “I don’t think I will ever leave him in the house alone again.”

AN ESSAY WITH A DIFFERENCE

There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty and those striving for death and destruction. You are aware of the heinous acts of the terrorists: women and children massacred, innocent aid workers decapitated, indiscriminate murder.

You are also aware of the heroic aspirations of the Iraqi people: liberty, democracy, normality. Those terrorists are not human but pure evil. For their goals to be thwarted, decent individuals must answer justice’s call for help . . . so I will.

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. Progress requires that we commit ourselves to such goals.

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.

I feel guilty living in a big house, driving a nice car, and going to a great school. I feel guilty hanging out with friends in a café without the fear of a suicide bomber present. I feel guilty enjoying the multitude of blessings, which I did nothing to deserve, while people in Iraq, many of them much better then me, are in terrible anguish.

Going to Iraq will broaden my mind. We kids at Pine Crest (school) live such sheltered lives. I want to experience during my Christmas the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience. I will give my mind, body and spirit to helping Iraqis to rebuild their lives. Hopefully I will get the chance to build houses, distribute food supplies, and bring a smile or two to some poor children. I know going to Iraq will be incredibly risky.

Nevertheless, I will go there to love and help my neighbour in distress. If that endangers my life, so be it.

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