A Long Way Gone

Ishmael Beah

pgs. 47-122

Ishmael has been to the village where is family has supposedly turned up. As he approaches he sees rebels. They burn down all the village and Ishmael finds his parents home burned to ashes. He then runs for weeks avoiding rebels. He then comes to an army occupied village. He is forced into the cause given a gun and trained to kill.

This is a very real thing, when Ishmael wrote this memoir in the 50 armed conflicts in the world, there were at least 300,000 child soldiers. This is a common sight as the children are ideal soldiers. People may be conflicted at hurting children. But the children are given drugs and have no sense of pain or death. Ishmael in the book is an orphan. Sadly this is very common all over the world, especially in places like Sierra Leone. That’s were Ishmael was born raised and rescued. There are orphanages everywhere across the globe. Also forced recruitment is very common in third world countries, it is similar to drafting, but is much worse. People are forced into armies or rebel alliances. They in some way are marked. They are given drugs, little food, old cloths. They also are given malfunctioning guns. This can cause damage to the person using the gun as well as people around him.