J.p. Lawrence is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He served in southern Iraq from 2009 to 2010 as a military journalist with the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division. His deployment consisted of traveling to a strange new place, meeting strange new people, and gaining an understanding. He wrote more than 100 pieces there. Today, he studies writing and anthropology at Bard College in New York, and he hopes throughout the rest of his life to continue experiencing new places, and to have an understanding, at some level, of the people there. [Read]