Boy Soldiers: Military Tactics On Boy Soldier

Military Tactics on Boy Soldiers

Early into Beah and his friend’s settlement into the village Yele, everything was considerably great. Beah still endured excruciating migraines but he and the boys, along with other children in the village, even had games to play and ate regularly. Yele was recognized as home primarily for soldiers of the army but also included other men, women, and children who cooked and completed chores; the village depended on the efficiency of every villager. Do to the soldier population there, this village was a dream come true to Beah and his friends. The boys felt safe, cared for, and needed. It was not long before all of this changed; the very component that first seemed to have a positive impact on all the boys ended

The boys enjoyed mimicking what they saw in movies such as Rambo with the energy gained from white pills administered by Lieutenant Jabati. Hyping up the boys with action movies and muting their right minds with advocated substance abuse made the boys malleable and much easier to influence. Movies also inspired a different perception of all the fighting and slaughtering going on in real life which redirected the boy soldiers from the truth of the matter. The drugs and violence Beah was exposed to mixed with his already diminished hope for his life to ever go back to the way it was left Beah to disregard his future beyond day-to-day survival mode. Every day was just making it to the next; Beah’s standards of life were erased so there was nothing worth denying himself marijuana, or brown-brown to distract himself from his circumstances. What started as a tactic to make the boys easier to manipulate and enhance battle skills resulted to be the only way Beah and the other boys could get through the day. Being sober was overwhelmingly depressing, but as their dependencies grew so did risk. Not taking drugs would make every one of them sick because their bodies would go through withdrawal. Going cold turkey caused illness and irritability. Once Beah and everyone else arrived to Benin Home there was nothing to cure their fix available. “[Beah and the boys] broke into the Mini-hospital and stole some pain relievers—white tablets and off white… [They] emptied the capsules, ground the tablets, and mixed them together”(139).Being exposed to drugs spiraled into another hardship in Beah’s life. Drugs Beah intended to numb himself with only further restrained him from discovering any hope or enlightenment about the war crisis and his future. Later being forced into sobriety like he had been into using in the first place,