Teen Magazine' s ' War' Issue Is Stellar

When I started thumbing through the special “War Torn” issue of New Youth Connections (“the magazine written by and for youth”), I fully expected to find blog fodder. After reading the issue, I can't decide on just one article to single out. If only the “adult” press (get your mind out of the gutter, dirtbag) had the courage to approach the issue of war from so many angles and so unapologetically. The issue feels like one long, really important conversation.

There's the young woman writing about eavesdropping on her brother's late night calls to mom from the Iraq war and the guide to helping friends and family members with PTSD. There’s a full page fact sheet on resisting military recruiters (“If you come from a troubled home, you already have an idea of the psychological damage that an environment like that can have on you,” writes a teen who organizes against recruiters, “and it’s probably going to do even more harm to be in a war.”). Then there’s a full page dedicated to the testimonies of teens who have enlisted already or are leaning towards it (“I'm worried that what [the recruiters] say is bulls--t,” writes one teen. “That’s why I ask the soldiers what the military is really like.”).

It’s not all about America's wars. A young man from the Ivory Coast writes about the ways “a civil war divided my crew.” Elsewhere in the magazine a young Palestinian defends Al Jazeera: “I never watch Al Jazeera without my eyes getting teary.”

Want to see the staff of New Youth Connections in action? Here you go:

Source: New Youth Connections

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