“Te amo primo” was the last thing I said to my cousin before he embarked on his new military career. It was a great opportunity that promised a living wage to support the family, although we were all devastated to see him go. Weeks had passed without any communication from my cousin. He had been gone for almost 7 months until word got out that his body had been found rotting in a mass grave near the Venezuelan border. He and many others were lured to the Colombian military with promises of work, then executed and falsely declared as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) insurgents in order to increase combat killings of rebels, otherwise known as the name “false positives”. A definition familiar to statistics, “false positives” are test results that incorrectly indicate that a particular component is present. In the FARC- and paramilitary-infested mountains of Colombia, where I spent most of my childhood, "false positives" were defined as 10,000 systematic executions of civilians, promotions for the officers who carried them out, and 1 $. 3 billion in aid programs from the US government. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay My cousin's murder was just a simple tally intended to increase military statistics in order to induce the country and misled the US government into supporting the proclaimed “war on terrorism and drugs”. prospered. To say the least, this traumatic event is the starting point of my journey on the path of education. Before the “false positives” scandal came to light, I grew up confused about the violence in my country and completely ignorant about the relationship between the military, statistics, or guerrilla warfare with a boy innocent 17 year old who still loved SpongeBob and blushed when talking to girls. All I knew was that those frightening words: “terrorism, FARC and drugs” were the cause of my family's incredible loss. I carried this heavy heart until it was time to choose a major for my undergrad. I decided to dedicate my educational journey to the defining factor that surrounded my childhood, specializing in homeland security and focusing on counterterrorism. During my studies, a 15-week course on modern American foreign policy taught by Dr. Glenn Dorn undoubtedly influenced my career choice by giving meaning to those frightening words that tormented my childhood and provided insight of Colombia's bloody civil war as I recounted my own horrors of living among the sewage of my country's slow path to healing after Escobar and the civil war. The course fueled my interest in international conflicts, prompting me to dive headfirst into research on various genocides, domestic and international terrorism, foreign policies, and environmental security. I have even been invited to speak at several universities on the convergence between traditional national security and environmental protection, as well as developing policies adapted to a changing environment and threat multipliers for human security. The success of this one-off university event ultimately led to a semester-long seminar and my appointment as keynote speaker. Although my talent for speaking about environmental safety seemed prolific for a future career, it was on August 24, 2016 that.