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There's a quiet, determined look on Ali Rawaf's young face. His eloquence and pensiveness belie his 17 years.

Ali's outlook is mature for a typical teenage boy. Then again, he is not a typical youth of today.

Five years ago, Ali was in war-torn Baghdad with his family when American bombs fell on his city. In the aftermath, he saw daily violence on Baghdad streets. He received death threats for his secular and democratic views.

His life is different today in Tucson. Ali, who has applied for political-refugee status, will 8graduate Thursday from Desert Christian High School, where he has been enrolled for the past three semesters.

The road from mortar shells to mortar boards has been a long one for Ali, and it will continue. Ali, in his youthful wisdom, wants to do more for his country and fellow Iraqis.

He was a student at a prestigious English-language Baghdad school when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to drive out Saddam Hussein.

He said Iraqis were filled with fear and uncertainty, but when Hussein's regime fell, he knew it was a turning point.

"I felt freedom coming," Ali said last week before his first morning class at the East Speedway campus near North Kolb Road.

But freedom didn't come. Liberation from Hussein turned into sectarian and tribal violence, Ali said.

Moderate voices for tolerance and reason were drowned out — or silenced with death.

Even at his age, Ali said he was one of those voices.

He blogged about turning post-Hussein Iraq into a secular, democratic country.

He said he received death threats, forcing his family to flee to neighboring Syria where millions of Iraqis have settled uncomfortably.

But two years ago, Ali left his family in Damascus. He came to the United States to study through a State Department student-exchange program.

He ended up in Tucson.

"It wasn't what I had imagined," he said. "I thought I'd see skyscrapers."

But the Sonoran Desert agreed with him and better yet, he found a good host family.

"He's certainly part of our family," said Christy Voelkel. She and her husband, Alan Voelkel, both educators, have taken in several exchange students. Ali is one of two Iraqi students currently living with them.

Christy Voelkel said she is impressed with Ali's understanding of people and world events.

"He reads a lot. He has a huge breadth of political, religious and social knowledge," said Voelkel, who previously taught at Desert Christian High School.

Ali has taken his experience directly to his classmates.

After a semester at Tucson Magnet High School, Ali received a full scholarship to attend the much smaller Desert Christian High School.

Ali connected immediately with his new classmates. He brought a new perspective to his classes and a sense of reality about the war, said school principal Ron Smith.

Smith, who taught Ali last year in a class called Christian Perspectives, said the students wanted to hear Ali's interpretation of Muslim attitudes and views.

"They did right off the bat," Smith said.

But Ali has done more than connect with his classmates. He's connected with Iraqi refugees, whose number is slowly growing in Tucson.

When he's not in school, studying at home or working at a fast-food joint at El Con, Ali tutors Iraqi students and translates for their parents. He also helps the adults find jobs and unravel the complexities of living in the U.S.

"He doesn't sleep," Voelkel said.

There's too much to do, too many people to help. He writes for an Iraqi political blog and has written several columns about Iraq for the Tucson Citizen. And he still finds time to hang out with his Iraqi and American friends.

He wants to study at the University of Arizona, probably journalism and political science.

But he has a huge hurdle.

Ali has applied for political refugee status. He believes if he returns he will suffer political retribution. He needs refugee status to remain in this country, and it would help him avoid the high tuition charged to foreign students.

His demeanor is as calm as he is confident. Not just about college but about his country's future as well.

Ali said he wants to return to Iraq after college to help rebuild and turn it into a tolerant, democratic country run by Iraqis.

That road begins this year, he said, when he turns 18. "I'm voting at the next (Iraqi) election."

Neto's Tucson