A Long Way Gone: Memoirs Of Child Soldiers

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Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been amply involved in military campaigns even when such practices were supposedly shunned and against cultural morals. Since the 1960s a large number of international conventions have been created to try to limit the participation of children involved in warfare, nevertheless the use of child soldiers in military and/or rebel forces have become not only a local dilemma but a widespread crisis. Child soldiering is a worldwide problem but we most frequently hear about Africa. The Republic of Sierra Leone is infamous for its portrayal of child soldiers in the past years. The decade long civil conflict left Sierra Leone not only dismantled but caused widespread trauma within the country. Now …show more content…
This way of life was crucial to their young and fragile minds as the only thing they trusted was their rifles. Their daily routine consisted of fear. Any soldier or person involved in conflict live in constant fear. They’re mind was so consumed with their live by the gun die by the gun mentality that their young lives were being deprived of life. Ishmael Baeh a former child soldier who was part of the rebel forces since the age of 13 he made this prevalent in his memoir A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier he writes:

“The extent of my thoughts didn’t go much beyond that. We had been fighting for over two years, and killing had become a daily activity. I felt no pity for anyone. My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen. I knew that day and night came and went because of the presence of the moon and the sun, but I had no idea whether it was a Sunday or a Friday.” (251)

Linda Greens Book Fear as A Way of Life uses the “altiplano” to describe fear. Green starts out the book saying fear is a response to danger. These child soldiers always felt in danger they “wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end” (Baeh). Green
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