Ishmael Beah Research Paper

Submitted By paizley
Words: 638
Pages: 3
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Paisley Skeith

English
September 6, 2014
1st hour
Ishmael Beah Prosecution On March 23, 1991 a devastating civil war broke out in the country of Sierra Leone located in Western Africa. Thousands of innocent and not so innocent people were taken hostage and/or killed. When the war broke out the innocent residents’ lives were forever changed for the worse. The once peaceful city of Sierra Leone, quickly became a horrific war zone (Sierra Leone). Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are gathered here today to discuss one of the participants who willingly helped ruin thousands of lives, Ishmael Beah. Many have said that Ishmael Beah was “forced to become a soldier;” however, there is little to no evidence that supports this scenario. Instead, there are numerous amounts of evidence to support the fact that he willingly killed people (Ex-Child Soldier). For example, the Lieutenant clearly stated, “If you do not want to fight or help, that is fine… you are free to leave,” which proves that at no point in time was Beah forced against his will to fight in the gruesome war (Beah, 121). Once Beah had officially joined the war and completed training, he quickly began fighting like a vicious animal and stated, “I angrily pointed my gun into the swamp and killed more people. I shot everything that moved” (Beah, 134). He found that once he began killing people he couldn’t stop due to anger and impulse. Not too long after Beah was officially part of the war, he and his fellow soldiers decided to create a contest to see who could kill one of the captured prisoners the fastest. The soldiers of the Civil War were so monstrous that killing had become a game to them. Beah, being one of the most heartless soldiers of them all, won the competition because he, “didn’t feel a thing for him,” the prisoner, and “… grabbed the man’s head and slit his throat in one fluid motion…” and then “turned the bayonet on its zigzag edge as it was brought out,” Beah then proceeded to “drop him on the ground and wipe his bayonet on him” (Beah, 141). By participating in this game, Ishmael Beah proved to his soldiers, and everyone who witnessed this act of horror, that he was not only good at killing - he actually enjoyed it. Several years further into the war, the Sierra Leone army continued to capture villages and Beah was so invested in the war that his motto was, “My squad is my family, my gun is my provider and protector, and my rule is to kill
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