Carson High School senior Jeremy Grunert heads for D.C.

A 17-year-old Carson High School student in Washington, D.C., this week will attend President George W. Bush's inauguration, despite his misgivings about safety and the president's leadership.

Jeremy Grunert, a senior, flew into the nation's capital Friday for a weeklong Presidential Youth Leadership Conference attended by hundreds of other students from around the country.

"I'm not exactly a big Bush fan," Grunert said. "I think he could have handled the situation with Iraq better. I also think he could have gone about finding al-Qaida in Afghanistan better."

Grunert is not sure where attendees of the conference, which occurs every four years in concert with presidential inaugurations, will stand along the route.

"I'm kind of scared of the parade route, especially because there's going to be protesters and there's going to be Secret Service and riot police," he said.

Grunert, whose interest is in international politics, was invited to the conference after attending a Congressional Youth Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., last summer. At this conference, he expects to learn more about how the president makes decisions.

"We'll get into groups and simulate presidential decision-making and a model Congress and things like that," he said. "We're going to be going to some of the monuments, like Arlington Cemetery, the World War II Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial."

In addition to attending conferences, Grunert learns about politics by reading books by Bob Woodward and Richard Clark.

"I'm pretty interested in politics," he said. "It's one of the bigger things in my life, I'd say. Politicians can help make the world a better place. They're the problem solvers of the world."

As a student who may one day want to be a foreign diplomat, he has opinions on many current events, including Indonesia's wariness about having armed U.S. troops providing aid to tsunami victims in its country.

"I think the military could be very helpful in giving out aid, but I could probably see where Indonesia is coming from," he said. "There were a lot of terrorist attacks there after Sept. 11, so probably putting the U.S. troops there, if there was anyone who would hit them there, Indonesia wouldn't want that."

Even if someone he liked better was being sworn in as president, Grunert said would still be concerned about security issues.

"It's definitely going to be an experience. It'll be interesting."

He returns Friday.

Contact reporter Maggie O'Neill at moneill@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.