While taking Spanish language courses in Spain , his teacher had posed him the question of where he was from . Dissatisfied with Melkonian 's answer of " California " , the teacher rephrased the question by asking " where did your '' ancestors '' come from ? " His brother Markar Melkonian remarked that " her image of us was not at all like our image of ourselves . She did not view us as the Americans we had always assumed we were . " From this moment on , for days and months to come , Markar continues , " Monte pondered their teacher Señorita Blanca 's question '' Where are you from ? '' " In the spring of that year , the family also traveled across Turkey to visit the town of Merzifon , where Melkonian 's maternal grandparents were from . Merzifon 's population at the time was 23,475 but was almost completely devoid of its once 17,000-strong Armenian population that was wiped out during the Armenian Genocide in 1915 . They did find one Armenian family of the three that was living in the town , however , Melkonian soon learned that the only reason this was so , was because the head of the family in 1915 had exchanged the safety of his family in return for identifying all the Armenians in the town to Turkish authorities during the genocide . Monte would later confide to his wife that " he was never the same after that visit .... He saw the place that had been lost . " Upon his return to California Monte returned to his education . In high school , he was exceeding all standards and having a hard time finding new academic challenges . Instead of graduating high school early , as was suggested by his principal , Monte found an alternative thanks to his father : a study abroad program in East Asia . At the age of 15 Monte traveled to Japan for a new chapter in his young life , namely to study martial arts and the Japanese language . While there , he began teaching English , which helped finance his travels through several Southeast Asian countries . This introduced him to several new cultures , new philosophies , new languages , and in several cases , like his travels through Vietnam ( just before the North would defeat the South ) , new skills that would become immensely valuable in his later life as a soldier . Returning to the United States , he graduated from high school and entered the University of California , Berkeley with Regents Scholarship , majoring in ancient Asian history and Archeology . In 1978 he helped to organize an exhibition of Armenian cultural artifacts at one of the university 's libraries . The section of the exhibit dealing with the 1915-23 genocide was removed by university authorities at the request of the Turkish consul general in San Francisco . The display that was removed was eventually reinstalled following a campus protest movement . Monte eventually completed his undergraduate work in under three years . Upon graduating , he was accepted into the archeology graduate program at the University of Oxford . However , Monte chose to forgo this opportunity , and instead chose to begin his lifelong struggle for the Armenian Cause
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Monte Melkonian