Young Ishmael Beah: A Long Way Gone

Rationale: In this essay I will be writing a biography about Ishmael Baeh a child soldier from Sierra Leone that wrote the book ‘A long way gone.’ I have chosen a biography because we were reading this book in class for a very long time and that’s how I got interested in the life of Ishmael. In my essay I have tried to get on a personal level with Ishmael which makes the essay more interesting. I’ve done this by writing in a lot of detail. In my essay I also talked about the child soldiers that are active now, because of the main topic in the book ‘A long way gone.’

Thousands and thousands, of children in the Middle East and Africa, are being used as soldiers where it is needed. These children kill others and do things that no other child should have to do. People wonder if child soldiers should be given amnesty or not. The issue of child soldiers came to worldwide attention when Ishmael Beah published his book A Long Way Gone, which was based on what happened while he was a child soldier. A child soldier is someone under the age of eighteen and who is used in wars.

A Long Way Home is a story told from a boy soldier named Ishmael. Ishmael is put in isolation as the war in his homeland, Sierra Leone quickly ravages through the country. His journey sets him deeper and deeper into the destruction and violence of the war. Ishmael struggles with internal and external battles that would set the tone for him keeping his hope and sanity. Ishmael’s story is one filled with bloodshed, tragedy, and lost of innocence as the story progresses.

Peyton Poovey A1 9/25/15 In the novel “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael has his mind pulled in conflicting directions by compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. The constant struggle to remain sane was a very real problem for Ishmael. These harsh experiences greatly affected the kind of man he is today.

A Long Way Gone. Ishmael Beah. New York: Sarah Critchton Books, 2007, 229 pages. The theme of this book is to never give up on hope. Hope is what everybody should believe in and have because hope occurred in the past and will be there in the future.

Children are like sponges, they soak up everything they see or hear. If children see nothing but war and violence it becomes a part of them. Consequently, Babes in Arms by William Boyd discusses about Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, and his life as a child warrior. Since Beah was only 12 when the Sierra Leone War had entered his life his mind was very influenced by bloodshed and brutality.

Snatched from their families, with guns pointed at their heads, they are forced to kill. Beaten and drugged, they lose all moral values. They are brainwashed into believing that killing is required to survive. These people are children, innocent victims, who need rescue. First of all, child soldiers are treated very poorly - like machines - to perform one task: kill.

How many people really die in a genocide? The answer, millions. The Holocaust, Rwandan Genocide, and Armenian Genocide are among the many genocides which have killed a countless number of people. The Holocaust, one of the biggest genocides in the world killed around 5,900,000 to 11,000,000. The Rwandan Genocide killed from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people, while the Armenian Genocide killed 800,000 to 180,000.

Imagine yourself as a child soldier. You, a tiny young child being forced with weapons in your bare hands. You hear the loud cries of children and the screaming of fellow child comrades. Sweat rolls down your face. Your commander, shouting and yelling for you to get on the battlefield.

“Human-rights experts estimate that more than 200,000 children worldwide are still being used as combatants, usually against their will” (Gettleman, 2010). Child soldiers and drummer boys may sound like something of the past, yet it is our present. The United Nations and human-rights groups comment that in war-torn countries, rebel groups and governments like Somali send children as young as nine-years-old to the front lines. These groups are “plucking children off soccer fields and turning them into fighters” or manipulating them (Gettleman, 2010). Youths who should be in school are handed a gun and taken advantage of.