Layla, if I understand you correctly, one of your students is being deployed -- perhaps he had signed up earlier for tuition, or out of an idealism which no longer holds for him. I can feel your anguish, and indeed I do think it is very strange, not being twenty any more, that people of that age can make such sweeping decisions, almost without thought, which then alter forever the course of their lives. But perhaps also this blindness is necessary, for look at all of the astonishing things which are done by the very young, who could take such risks understanding what they mean?
Still, yours is a concrete worry, not an abstract one. I would give very basic advice, to write him letters, to send him books and packages, perhaps to invite him to join your classes via the web if that is possible. To show support for him as a human being, independent of what you think of the project he is involved in. To encourage him to use his education to think deeply and critically about what is going on where he is, to write dispatches and essays, to keep a diary, to engage with others.
There is a larger existential question which comes with this, about the way people's lives depend on thoughtless decisions and even on thoughtful ones, to an unreasonable extent. What kind of advice does one give here? I understand your anguish. How to engage with others before it is too late, without presuming to know what is best for them, or tell them what to do?
