A Long Way Gone- Ishmael Beah

The war finally reached me when I was twelve years old. I knew about the war through stories, but it seemed as if it was happening in a faraway and different place. In January 1996, I realized it was closer than I ever imagined.

The first attack came with little warning. No one was prepared and families were separated as everyone ran desperately into the forest. I lost my whole family, except for my older brother, in the chaos. The two of us stuck together and, along with a few friends, we became nomads, searching the wilderness and surrounding villages for our families.

Our journey through the wilderness was full of danger and many times we were threatened by people with machetes. We had to convince them that we were only boys looking for our families, not rebels of the RUF. After many weeks of searching, sleeping in deserted camps, starvation, misery, and shame, we heard of a rumor that a there was a village where many of the people from our village went after it was attacked. Hoping to find our families, we made our way to the village. We were all full of anticipation at the thought of seeing our families, but just before we entered the village, it was attacked by rebel forces. My family was burned to death, trapped inside a house. I was so full of anger and sadness. I had traveled so far to find my family, and they were killed right in front of me. If I had only gotten there a few minutes earlier, we could have been out of the village, nice and safe together. Hatred filled my body. I wanted to avenge the death of my family. This is where my journey began.

After the death of my family, the only thing I had to live for was revenge. I was taken into the government’s army, fighting the RUF rebels. After starvation and the pain from losing my family set in, I felt the need to become part of something larger than myself. Something that could hold together and stay strong after all else had fallen apart. I planed to avenge the death of my family by killing all the rebels I could. I was brainwashed into thinking that revenge and death was the only answer to winning the war and finally coming to terms with my family’s death. I traded in my childhood for an AK-47 and the front lines. I witnessed so many other children die around me. I didn’t know why I was still alive, but I knew that I was going to fight until the end.

Then one day, a strange armored truck pulled into our village. I was in the group of boys randomly selected for the UNICEF rehabilitation. My guns were taken away from me, and I was loaded onto the truck with all the other selected boys. It felt so weird to not have a gun. Weapons had become my way of life, and I was angry to have my routine changed. I did not realize that they had saved my life. The first few months were the worst. We were not used to being treated as kids and taking orders from ‘civilians’. It took time, and lots of patience and care from the UNICEF workers, but we were rehabilitated. We learned how to be kids and enjoy life. We started school and learned how to trust people again.

Never did I think I would become a writer, but it all started in the UNICEF rehabilitation camp. I became the spokes person, proving to the world that we can become children again, we are not monsters. Speaking from the heart has allowed me to overcome my anger, and understand that my family would want me to live and be happy.

Today, I write because I realize that revenge will just lead to revenge and revenge and revenge. It is vicious on going cycle. I write to alter people’s view of society, and to show them that as long as there is fighting, there will be child soldiers. I write to bring awareness. I was one of the lucky ones, I survived. To repay my debt to those that lost their lives, I must tell the world of their courage, their suffering, and the importance to step in and stop what is happening in Sierra Leone.

I write to keep the memory of my family alive. I do not want to forget them, or forget what made me who I am today. I do not want to forget those that helped me on my way, by remembering them in my writing, I am keeping them alive, I am giving them importance.

For a while I struggled with the fact that I was the only one of my family to survive. It did not seem fair to me, I believed that I should have died with them. But I remember what my father said to me, “If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die”(54). It was my destiny to live and write about my story. We cannot go back in time, but we can remember the past and do our best to change the future.