[Zarathu]

Yes. Very solid yes.

You don't see much of this in the media, but Iraq is a stunningly beautiful country. There's a lot that you can learn from the people there (and certainly much they could learn from you), and the Arabic language is nothing short of remarkable.

Diving head-first into another culture is one of the few educations that the Internet and college cannot fully convey via text. You won't regret it.

[davidw]

The only culture he would be 'diving head-first into' is the US military culture; my guess is that his contact with the country would be somewhat limited, for obvious reasons. If you want to really experience a local culture, there are probably better countries for that, where you can concentrate on getting to know the people and culture and not worrying.