The title of my book was Soldier Boys by Dean Hughes and it was a fiction book, published in 2003. Soldier Boys was during WWII in Germany and Brighman City, Utah. It tells the story of an American and German teenaged boy. They join the war and fight in the battle of the Bulge.…
During the Sierra Leone Civil War that started on March 23, 1991, the eleven-year armed conflict caused the displacement of many citizens and the conscription of child soldiers. The novel A Long Way Gone, shows the memoir of Ishmael Beah’s childhood during the violent years of the war. Throughout the story the author Beah embodies the loss of innocence in many parts of his early life. Using the different events that Beah experiences, the author displays the transition of youthfulness to the end of Beah’s childhood. When Beah is inducted into the military and endures hardships, he truly loses innocence and stops calling flashbacks to his childhood causing him to disconnect from reality.…
A long way gone by Ishmael Beah is a story about his experiences as a child soldier in a civil war in Sierra Leone. He vividly showcases his life during the war by writing about his memories and his emotions in those particular situations. By displaying such scenarios, Beah indirectly explains his audience and purpose of his writing.…
In the novel A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah describes to us what it was like to live in the terrifying times in Sierra Leone, South Africa. A civil war started from the want of mass diamond production, Streets were filled with chaos. Children traveling the streets from town to town were exposed to traumatizing and life changing events. In Beah's novel the traumatic effects of war, drug addiction, and mass murder all lead to the experience of PTSD. A post traumatic stress disorder that not only affects themselves but family members and friends also.…
In "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah the author describes his experiences in the Sierra Leone civil war. He faced many challenges, and this affected him in many ways. The Sierra Leone war brought Beah into conflict with his own humanity, specifically his will to live, his empathy, and his trust.…
"Hurry up! We gotta go. We are to bypass 3rd ID in Baghdad and take the northern part of Iraq."…
Throughout history wars have been fought mercilessly and without remorse especially in guerilla warfare. In A Long Way Gone, author Ishmael beah, explains in vivid detail his experience during the war and the horrors it came with. Throughout his journey he tends to see the environment around him fall apart. While it may seem hellish and unforgiving nature itself tries to run from the war. Nature itself does not consider war to be natural since it is driven by murder rather than…
Freedom is something not a lot of places are fortunate to have, but luckily in America everyone has the right to freedom. What if your freedom was taken away, leaving you helpless? Sadly enough that is how many people feel, and how many people live. Sometimes you have to fight for your freedom no matter what the situation is. Two examples that show this include the texts “The Boys Who Fought” and “Holocaust Survivor Stories” show how many people during World War 2 were deprived of their freedom.…
The privilege of being a child is only a lost dream to children in places like Sierra Leone where they are forced into joining rebel and militia groups. The children in those groups learn how to shoot guns when instead they should be learning how to ride a bicycle. In Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone he speaks about his time during the war and being recruited as a child soldier. Ishmael goes through numerous life changing events and commits awful things during his time in fighting in the war. Ishmael however is able to leave his horrible lifestyle behind, obtain his humanity back and start a new beginning along with the rest of society. Beah manages to withstand the effect of the horrors of war by accepting the loss of his family, and beginning new relationships with people such as his newly found uncle and Esther the nurse from his rehabilitation center.…
Joseph Plumb Martin was born on November 1760 in western Massachusetts. He wrote a book in which he described the life of an ordinary soldier during the American Revolution.”A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier” not only informed about the poor conditions in which the troops lived but also is one of the few soldier's accounts of the Revolution in general.…
The first paradox radiates throughout many authors’ writings, including A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Throughout his memoir novel, Beah makes many mentions of both wonderful and atrocious events. He describes a child with an “interrupted innocent smile on her face” (Beah 13). To give context, Sierra Leonean rebels opened fire on a civilian village, killing many in the process.…
This paper will argue that in the pursuance of survival the protagonist, Ishmael Beah, must cope with and adapt to the desolate world around him. It takes strength mentally and physically to survive, carry on through hardships, yet it requires beyond this to live, purse a lifestyle, during the war. Conforming to the war that surrounds him Ishmael is choosing to do more than simply survive he is choosing to live as he does the necessary requirements to ensure his body and soul live on. Ishmael’s unconscious goal of living rather than surviving is exhibited through his conformity to his war torn country that surrounds him. Ishmael adapts to life as a child soldier via guns and drugs as a means of survival. Living without his family, Ishmael encourages himself to adapt the war-flawed country by grasping onto memories of the past and thoughts of being reconnected with his family once again. Ishmael experiences situations that he has to acclimatize in order to keep his soul alive.…
By sharing his experiences in A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah helps increase awareness of the events that have occurred, and continue to occur today. Beah provides an intriguing perspective on the Sierra Leone Civil War. A Long Way Gone depicts the fascinating life story of a real person and is not simply summarizing a series of events. Ishmael Beah’s wrote A Long Way Gone to bring awareness to the many terrors of war, and to acknowledge the numerous people who aided him and he accomplished this by sharing an different perspective and a jarring story.…
My army career was right on track. I had been in the 3 years at this point, coming up on 4, and already had completed air assault school, been awarded my expert infantry badge, and had one 15 month deployment under my belt. I was assigned to the scout platoon sniper section and was waiting for a sniper school packet to get final approval from the company commander. I had been studying for the sergeant promotion board for months. I knew that study guide like the back of my hand, I knew whatever question I was asked by the Command Sergeant Major I would have an answer for. I went to the promotion board that morning and blew it out of the water. My dress uniform was perfect. No one was able to find a single deficiency. The Soldiers Creed and the…
Given that young people today are constantly bombarded with images and reports from the media of the horrific things going on in the world, it is oftentimes helpful to them to be able to put things into a context with which they can identify. By reading an account of a child like themselves and seeing through her eyes how these unimaginable horrors affect her so directly and so terribly, it makes the realities of war more real to them than any far-away news broadcast ever could. On the flip side of the coin, however, this book is not for every 9 to 13-year-old reader, and adults should take care to know the children to whom they recommend this book. Sensitive youngsters would undoubtedly find the graphic depictions of both the bandits…