A real summer field trip for Princeton student

Washington Post:

The briefing was top secret, limited to a group of men with titles ranging from captain to four-star general -- plus one awed 19-year-old civilian.

At first, the teenager sat outside the briefing room with a handful of reporters. Then an aide to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, poked his head out of the door and said, "Wesley Morgan? General Petraeus wants you in here."

Morgan, a sophomore at Princeton, spent his summer vacation in Iraq on a personal invitation from Petraeus. He met with the visiting then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, and had access to multiple classified briefings. He helped patrol streets in Baghdad. His identification card read "journalist," because he keeps a blog about his experiences, but he was treated more like one of the members of Congress or other VIPs who have passed through Iraq.

The trip was the chance of a lifetime for Morgan, an ROTC cadet who said he first became interested in military history and counterinsurgency at age 6. But Petraeus's invitation also highlights his desire to attract more people like Morgan to military service -- the guys with degrees from places like Princeton (where Petraeus himself earned a doctorate), the slightly nerdy ones who are as comfortable poring over treatises on counterinsurgency tactics as going out on patrol.

"He has studied Iraq deeply and is exceedingly well read," Petraeus said of his protege. "I love to see these types of people here."

Petraeus's willingness to be a mentor stems from a desire to position himself as the man who rebuilt the Army, people who have worked with him in Iraq and elsewhere say. He has been open about his desire to shape the officer corps into a group of highly educated thinkers and has surrounded himself with Rhodes Scholars and PhDs, a group that has come to be known as his brain trust.

"I think he's universally well known for finding smart people who are interested in doing things a little differently, and I think that's a major reason for his success," says Capt. Elizabeth McNally, a West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar who is Petraeus's speechwriter.

Still, Petraeus says this is the first time he has taken someone so young under his wing, with the exception of his own son, a junior ROTC cadet at MIT.

The seed for Morgan's improbable summer vacation in Iraq was planted last October, when he wrote a lengthy profile of Petraeus for Princeton's student newspaper. They spoke on the phone for two hours, with Petraeus asking nearly as many questions as he was answering, both men recalled.

The two began e-mailing regularly, and in March, the general asked: Wouldn't Wes like to spend a summer in Baghdad?

"It's amazing," Morgan said after the briefing at Camp Taji last month. "It's the weirdest summer vacation ever, but to finally get to see what's happening for myself is unbelievable."

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Morgan's path toward becoming the youngest American civilian known to have spent time in Iraq started at least 15 years before he actually landed in Baghdad. In fact, when the e-mail from Petraeus came, Morgan's mother wasn't even surprised.

"I really think this interest and this aptitude is hard-wired into him," says Kerry Tucker, who lives with Morgan's father and younger brother near Boston. "So the fact that he's been able to take it to this level is wonderful, but I can't say it's totally unexpected."

Morgan once came home from preschool nearly in tears after learning that teachers at the school, which served a politically liberal population in Cambridge, Mass., had gone through illustrated books about cars and trucks and torn out the pages showing military vehicles.

"He said, 'Why did you send me to Dandelion School?' " she recalls, laughing. "It was a lovely school that was the worst possible place for him."

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What kind of horrible teacher would deny information to students about warfare? No one should be required to attend schools were teachers rip out the pages about warfare and the tools of war. Are they trying to turn these kids into anti war pukes? The question answers itself. BTW, my son had two are three divisions of little green military figures by the time he started school. The Marine Corps recruiting posters over his crib may have had something to do with it.

We are fortunate to have young men like Wesley Morgan who are eager to study the art of war. they are more likely to provide us with lasting peace than any anti war professors. Morgan's blog gives some of his impressions of his trip to Iraq.

Gen. Marshall had a talent for spotting talented young officers like Eisenhower and Patton and advancing their careers. Perhaps Gen. Petraeus has such a talent too.