An American college student's "sick" vacation with Libyan rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi may be over: The 21-year-old man was sent packing from the revolution, according to tweet from Al Jazeera on Friday.
"Our team in east Libya said rebels fed up with Chris Jeon, US kid who tried to join, told him 2 go, last seen on pick-up going 2 Benghazi," Al Jazeera producer Evan Hill tweeted.
Jeon, a student at the University of California, Los Angeles, joined rebel forces near the front lines of the conflict after buying a one-way ticket to Cairo two weeks ago, The Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday.
“This is one of the few real revolutions,” he told the Monitor. “I just thought I’d come check it out.”
He purchased a one-way ticket from Los Angeles to Cairo, then traveled by land across the border into Libya, according to the Monitor.
A friend of Jeon's described him as “thrill seeker” who refused to listen when friends tried to stop him from embarking on the trip. His parents didn't know where he was, either, according to reports.
"He's becoming a thrill seeker. I love him to death, but he does plenty of stupid s---. ... I'm very glad that he's still alive," Peter Duan told LA Weekly.
Duan also told the Weekly: "He told me, 'If a rebel's running at me with a gun, I won't hesitate to shoot his head off.'"
Jeon was photographed at a rebel outpost in the middle of the desert near the front lines of the fight with Gadhafi’s loyalists. He made fast friends with a gaggle of rebel fighters.
“At spring break I told my friends a 'sick' vacation would be to come here and fight with the rebels,” he told the Monitor.
He was among the first rebel fighters who drove into Nawlifyia to take it from Gadhafi troops, he told the Monitor.
But it seems his time in the Libyan sun may be over.
