Some choices I did make

You go through life. You make a lot of choices. Some are smart. Some are poor.

 

But it is not always possible to see the result when you make the decision.

 

One decision I made and I am proud of is that I did choose not to travel to the United States to become a exchange student.

 

At the time we didn't have a political prisoner in Florida, so none could understand how such a period abroad can hunt you for the rest of your life.

 

Camilla Broe as her name is lived as exchange student in the states. Unlike most she went on living in Florida and worked ordinary jobs.

 

They she broke an unwritten law which exchange students have to follow. She befriended members of the local population. She even went into relationship with some of them.

 

If we can talk about her having done anything wrong, that is the only thing she did wrong, but that one mistake made it possible to charge her for conspiracy and followed by this main charge a lot of other things made up because they know that she is poor and cannot afford her defense.

 

Of course the Danish courts should have looked at the list of charges and ruled that she should stay put in Denmark until they could provide a valid list of charges.

 

Instead they changed the charges after the Danish courts had ruled in the extradition case and she was sent to Florida, where she is shown in restraints as a kind of triumf by the DEA.

 

I was not planning to break the law when I though of taking the offer my grandfather gave me. He would pay for the entire year. Something made me think about the risk such an adventure could include and I declined the offer to his surprise.

 

But as I said. Just imaging that I saw something as simple as a traffic accident where classmates from the school was involved. As a foreigner I would properly have declined to make a statement.

 

I am a Dane. I should involve myself with the welfare of foreigners. They should figure things out by themselves and of course just a little help to authorities in an alien country could have embarrased my fellow citizens when I returned.

 

But this approach which would be totally accepted in Denmark, would have brought me charges like obstruction of justice or conspiracy in the United States.

 

So after I had explained my case, my grandfather accepted that I didn't take his offer. No hard feelings there.

 

Then a year later the Camilla Broe case came and I my points of doubt were justified.

 

I don't know why I began to think about the consequences where most youth my age would have jumped into this arrangement, but maybe I was just more matured than my age indicated.

Comments: 1 (Discussion closed)
  • #1

    Henrik Jørgensen (Sunday, 18 October 2009 09:22)

    If you read todays newspaper you can see that not even the Agencies care for one second how you end up abroad.

    http://www.bt.dk/danmark/16-aarige-amanda-hjem-fra-mareridt

    You made a good choice.