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Emotional and psychological effects of war on soldiers
Research on child soldiers
Research on child soldiers
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There are kids hesitant to watch the fireworks because of fear. They fear the darkness at night, loud noises, and large crowds with people they don’t know. For some kids, fear has a negative impression and long term effect psychologically. They try hard to avoid and escape from the situation. Not every kid is lucky enough to escape from their fears. Much worse than the holiday trauma, there are many children in the African Ivory Coast, who suffer from diseases, hunger, poverty, and rape. In that environment, many kids had to go through fear and violence. When children cannot escape from their fear, they can be easily brainwashed by other people. The book, A Long Way Gone (2007) the story is about how Ishmael goes through the civil war and …show more content…
Ishmael kept running, and he met Musa, Alhaji, Kanei, Jumah, Moriba, and Saidu. He then started an escape journey with these kids. Children who used to live a normal life until the war completely changed them and transformed them into a whole different human being. No one in the country believed in kindness and love anymore. Children had to escape for their own lives. Sometimes they had no choice but to join the military to keep themselves alive. Ishmael’s life was finally changed by some good UNICEF people. He finally learned to forgive and gained back his humanity. There are few types of brainwashing method used in the military to keep the child soldiers energetic and injecting hate in them. While people believe that military people are the authorities, the Sierra Leone military used drugs, movies, and speech to keep the soldiers …show more content…
The speeches cause children to have revenge in their hearts and minds, and seeing the death of their friends and families are motivating them to fight. The war was coming, and the village needed more soldiers to keep the village safe. The boys were told to join the military or leave the village, but they knew there was only death once they leave the village. “‘Some of you are here because they have killed your parents or families, others because this is a safe place to be. Well, it is not that safe anymore. That is why we need strong men and boys to help us fight these guys, so what we can keep this village safe. You are free to leave, because we only want people here who can cook, prepare ammunition, and fight '"(106). The soldier continues to speak as if they know the orphans want to protect the families and not letting the children experience what they had experienced. [?] “‘This is your time to revenge the deaths of your families and to make sure more children do not lose their families’” (106). The speech is forcing the orphans to join the military. Seemingly, the army wants more people to join the military to keep the village safe. On the other hand, they are forcing the orphans to join the military because they know the orphans are going to either join the military or die when they step out of the village. They make the orphans think, but in a way they are forcing the orphans to join.
From many dark to happy times that were never ending. Ishmael Beah examines his life with different tones that enhanced the effect of the story through many intriguing events. From happy occasions to horrendous times of war, with the rebel attack on his home village, to losing his family and being forced to fight the rebels as an army soldier. Beah started out with suspenseful and terrifying tones when he was separated from family and friends when the war started and had to survive on his own. Then the tone changed to dark, life-threatening, and dismal when he reluctantly was in the army killing rebels and given drugs to cope and continue killing. In conclusion, the tone was pleased, satisfied, and peaceful when he was rehabilitated out of the army and went to New York City where he was adopted and could be a kid
Ishmael Beah’s memoir, A Long Way Gone, narrates the story of Ishmael’s life as a child soldier in the Sierra Leonean civil war. Ishmael chronicles his journey from a scared, adrift child who lost his family in the war to a brutal child soldier who mercilessly killed many individuals to a guilt stricken rehabilitated teen who slowly learns to overcome his remorse from his past actions. Ishmael’s life as a child soldier first started when the Sierra Leonean army took him and his friends with them to the village, Yele, occupied by army officials and seemingly safe from the rebels. Unfortunately, within a few weeks of their stay, the rebels attacked Yele, and Ishmael and his friends decided to make the choice of becoming a child soldier in order to sustain their slim chances of staying alive. Ishmael’s interaction with violence was very different as a child soldier compared to as a civilian: while he witnessed violent actions before, as a child soldier he was committing them. As his life as a soldier demanded more violence from him, Ishmael sank deeper into the process of dehumanization with his main driving point being the revenge that he sought from the rebels for the deaths of his family and friends. After a few months as a child soldier, Ishmael was brought to the Benin home by UNICEF officials who hoped to rehabilitate the completely dehumanized child soldiers. With the help of Esther, a compassionate nurse, and other staff members in the center, Ishmael was able to ultimately reverse the effects of the war on him. By forgiving himself and the rebels who took away his close ones from him, Ishmael was able to restore his emotion of empathy and become rehabilitated.
In the book A Long Way Gone written by Ishmael Beah, Ishmael survives and describes his journey while at war. Ishmael was a 13 year old who is forced to become a child soldier. He struggles through a variety of problems. In his journey, he was separated from his family and mostly running for his life. Later on, he has no problem killing people and picking up his gun. In fact, anyone can be evil at any certain time with kids changing, getting drugged, and going back to war.
During the war, there were two prevalent groups. These were the army and the rebels, both of which offered Ishmael a questionable future. As we know, Ishmael ended up joining the army. About his experience in the army, Ishmael says “I had my gun now, and as the corporal always said “This gun is your source of power in these times.It will protect you and provide you all you need, if you know how to use it well.”” (p.124). This type of thinking is in short, self-destructive to Ishmael. It would mean that he would either end up dead during the war, or if he was to survive, it would be very unlikely for him to be rehabilitated because he had been so reliant on his gun during the war. In addition to this, it would leave Ishmael in a precarious state when the war ended if he had not been rehabilitated, since the only thing he knew to do for years was to kill. However, since he was able to be rehabilitated, he was able to conform to society once more. This, unfortunately, could have been prompted once again near the end of the book when history repeats itself when the AFRC took over Sierra Leone. “The entire nation crumbled into a state of lawlessness. I hated what was happening. I couldn’t return to my previous live.”. Once again, war comes knocking on Ishmael’s front door, and this time around Ishmael knows what war is like and what he is going to experience again. Ishmael was
Ishmael starts his journey with a will to escape and survive the civil war of Sierra Leone in order to reunite with his mom, dad, and younger siblings, who fled their home when his village was attacked by rebels. Having only his older brother, who he escaped with, and a few friends by his side Ishmael is scared, but hopeful. When the brothers are captured by rebels, Ishmael’s belief in survival is small, as indicated by his fallible survival tactics when he “could hear the gunshots coming closer…[and] began to crawl farther into the bushes” (Beah 35). Ishmael wants to survive, but has little faith that he can. He is attempting to survive by hiding wherever he can- even where the rebels can easily find him. After escaping, Ishmael runs into a villager from his home tells him news on the whereabouts of his family. His optimism is high when the villager, Gasemu, tells Ishmael, “Your parents and brothers wil...
The war in Sierra Leone lasted eleven years and resulted in mass murder, destruction, and mainly, loss of innocence. This war impacted nearly everyone in the country, however its specific damage on the children of Sierra Leone is a tragedy that haunts the victims to this day. The Rebels killed and tortured thousands of innocent people and destroyed villages throughout the country. Boys as young as twelve were forced to form an army and fight against the rebels. Ishmael Beah, a young boy living amongst this war, tells his story in the book A Long Way Gone. He explains the gory and disturbing details of his life as a boy soldier. As the young boys were brainwashed into killing, the women and young girls of the country were being raped,
When Ishmael was recruited by the military in Yele, he was given the opportunity to get
...oss Laura Simms, a narrator and his forthcoming foster mom, and understands the significance of sharing his practice with the world in expectations of avoiding such terrors from happening to other youngsters and to other parts of the world. (chapter 20).Afterwards Ishmael revenues to Freetown, Sierra Leon, a rebellion by the RUF and the Soldierly outs the non-combatant government, and the warfare Ishmael has been escaping from catches up with him. After his uncle’s passing, Ishmael escapes Sierra Leon for nearby Guinea and finally makes his tactic to his different lifetime in the United States (chapter 21).
The consequences of Sierra Leone civil war are children like Ishmael and his friends “by pass villages by walking through the nearby bushes” (Beach 37). By hiding behind bushes and sneaking by villages that is how they “would be safe and avoid causing chaos” (Beah 37). This civil war consequences were having people not only to be living in fear but fear of being caught or be in a village that gets under attack. Another consequence was losing loved ones, friends, and neighbors. But the final consequence was turning children and teenagers into child soldiers. (word count
The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This along with the language used and the order, in which the events are disclosed, all serve to create a particular interpretation and to guide the reader to respond in a particular way.
Clearly, the Sierra Leone army knows what strategies in order to recruit children into becoming soldiers through manipulations. For example, a long way gone, written by Ishmael Beah shows the process of a boy being manipulated into the Sierra Leone army, but the world has been corrupted for any years, and needless to say, enough is enough. Ishmael's decision have shown the importance of Maslow’s Hierarchy, and the ability to live life without manipulations and eventually reach the final goal a person
Child soldier is a worldwide issue, but it became most critical in the Africa. Child soldiers are any children under the age of 18 who are recruited by some rebel groups and used as fighters, cooks, messengers, human shields and suicide bombers, some of them even under the aged 10 when they are forced to serve. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically make obedient soldiers. Most of them are abducted or recruited by force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. As society breaks down during conflict, leaving children no access to school, driving them from their homes, or separating them from family members, many children feel that rebel groups become their best chance for survival. Others seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge family members who have been killed by the war. Sometimes they even forced to commit atrocities against their own family (britjob p 4 ). The horrible and tragic fate of many unfortunate children is set on path of war murders and suffering, more nations should help to prevent these tragedies and to help stop the suffering of these poor, unfortunate an innocent children.
...ys, they are seized by soldiers and taken to a village engrossed by the military fighting back at the rebels. The fellow children soldiers became Ishmael’s only family at the time, and each of them were supplemented with a white pill, “The corporal said it will boost your energy” says a young soldier. (116) Little did Ishmael and the others know that the tablet was an illicit drug given to them to fight their fatigue and anxiety for a short term to better them in combat with the rebels. Beah unknowingly alters into a blood-craving animal, who kills with numbness and no emotion. “I was not afraid of these lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them.” (119) Ishmael now relies and is addicted to drugs to get through his day-to-day life, including smoking marijuana, and constantly snorting “brown brown” (121) which is a mixture of gunpowder and cocaine.
“Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults” (“Child Soldiers” 1). This quotation by Olara Otunnu explains that children are forced into becoming weapons of war. Children under 18 years old are being recruited into the army because of poverty issues, multiple economic problems, and the qualities of children, however, many organizations are trying to implement ways to stop the human rights violation.
Machel, Graca & Sebastian Salgado. The Impact of War on Children. London: C. Hurst, 2001.