Life for the Ex-soldier

Ishmael Beah now lives in New York City where he finished college with a B.A.. Ishmael is a pert of the Human Rights organization, and has spoken in front of the United Nations about is past and the situation in Sierra Leone. Ishmael has spread his experience memoirs to many other organizations for children in war torn countries.

Homage to the Boy Soldiers

"A Single Slice Reveals Them" a poem by Niomi Shihab Nye

An apple on the table hides its seeds
so neatly
under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk
to let somebody
in.

This poem is related to the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier because it tell us how a person can hide who they truly are inside but if you spend even five minuets with that person you will be able to see who they are and not what they seem to be. In the book Ishmael Beah has been sent to a reform camp after being taken from the Sierra Leone Army and starts to be haunted by the memories of all the killing and dead bodies he has seen. As a soldier he hides the weaker, more open kid inside him. The staff in the facility refuse to let him go through his life without opening up so they continue to tell him it not his fault for being the way he is and continue to trying to open him up. Ishmael himself wants to be the way he was before he was forced to snort lines and shoot rounds but he is so brainwashed he believes that it is impossible for him. It will take along time for him and a relentless intervention for him be finaly open up and be a kid again.

Living Double

In the book "a long way gone memoirs of a boy soldier" the main character Ishmael Beah is taken away from his unit and put into a reform camp where he and other boys from the army get into a fight with rebel boys and wind up losing one of there own and killing two of the rebel boys. At about two months into the boys stay at the camp the boys start to have withdrawals from the heavy drugs they were taking while they were in their units and as the boys start to end the withdrawals the memories of all the people they have slaughtered begin to haunt them and Ishmael is caught between the soldier side of him witch wants to fight everyone that he sees and go back to the front and kill. The boy side of him just wants to play soccer and hang around with his friends. Ishmael is having a hard time trying to find a way to show he is a hard soldier and yet he is wanting to let go and goof off.

LITTLE RAMBO.

L.ives full of hate while
I.nside the fire
T.urned against humanity
T.arrorized by the very soldiers they now burn
L.oves to hear the screams
E.ngulfed by pounds of drugs and the adoration of violence

R.isks own life in the pursuit of blood
A.rmed to the teeth with no desire to stop
M.eans to burn all who bare the R.U.F.
B.urrows into mounds or cocaine and weed just to survive the pain
O.ut raged by the fact the enemy yet live

God Grew Tired Of A Boy Soldier

After watching a movie called "God Grew Tired of Us" and reading the book "a long way gone, memoirs of a boy soldier" I realized that our world really isn't as we hope it is or as we would like it to be. In the movie the country of Sudan comes under a civil war between the northern and southern half's, the refugee boys who leave for freedom call them selves "the lost boys" of Sudan start with 28,000 boys and end with 12,000. The numbers dropped so much because as they were leaving they came under fire at separate times by soldiers and fighter planes.

In the book the country of Sierra Leone, at the same time, came under a civil war between groups of rebels and the government army and the main character Ishmael Beah's village gets attacked by rebels and is split up from his family, as he runs from the fighting he is haunted by the memories of the dead dieing bodies he saw as he ran. He continues to travel with a group of friends he finds along his way until he is brought in by the Government Army and forced to fight, kill and take drugs.

The similarities between the two of the stories is the the fact that the two different groups of boys had to run from the war there own country was waging on the people and on many time they had to fight to survive.

"a long way gone" Text To The Movie "Lord of War"

"smoking marijuana and sniffing brown brown, cocaine mixed with gunpowder"
I made this connection to the movie Lord Of War because in the movie an Arms Dealer walked into a bar in Africa after making a deal and gets "brown brown" ordered for him by a soldier who is smoking weed behind him.