A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier By Ishmael Beah

A long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, like many other books that have been read within Education 323 has been a very was a powerful book. It is especially powerful because it is a memoir, the true stories and memories of a man who witnessed the Sierra Leone’s Civil War first hand. Just taking a look at the cover of the book I was struck with disbelief it is unfathomable that children can be let alone shot at but taken in and turned into a solider.  In my research prior to reading A long Way Gone I had read that it was hard for people to know who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, I really saw this happening throughout the book and trust is a huge issue that we have come across in all of our books. Trust is a way of letting our borders down and allowing someone to be a part of your life. It is interesting to me how quickly people within Sierra Leone distrusted one another and also how quickly Ishmael trusted many people. 

Another similarity that I have come across within almost all of these books is that the main characters of the books are very young they are all children. Many of these books are in a way coming of age stories, but I find it interesting to see how many of these children quickly grow up and take the lead as if they are adults themselves. I am not sure if it is an instinct or if that is how their cultures are. I am not sure if a child from America was faced with these sorts of problems that they would be able to raise among the rest and be the adult that they are not. 

Something that I was not aware of prior to reading this book was the drug use. This didn’t come as a surprise to me because what else would you do to paralyze the emotions and to make yourself quicker. It was really sad to see how the boys after being taken away from war reacted to the lack of drugs. While recovering from drugs these boys were also recovering from war and they craved violence just like a hungry man craves food. They often broke into fights just to fight.

There was a similarity that I saw within these boys recovering from war that I have read and heard about with American soldiers coming home from war. Ishmael talked about dreaming of war both at night and during his daydreaming.  While I have never been in the military and I do not have anyone close to me who has it sounds like it is a very sad and depressing recovery that some never come out of. Many people end up ending their lives because they cant end the dreams. 

I am glad that Ishmael eventually began to find people that he could trust and ended up leaving Sierra Leone, and made it into the US, but it is so sad to think of what he had to endure to be where he is today. Ishmael Beah is a brave individual, not only for conquering the nightmare of Sierra Leone’s civil war that forced him to be an adult long before he needed to be, but also in sharing his own story, one that I have been greatly impacted by.