War is a haunting time that affects all humans in one way or another at some point in their lives, and this is explicitly shown in Ishmael Beah’s memoir A Long Way Gone. This book was written from the point of view of Ishmael himself, whose life experiences are almost unimaginably daunting, telling his story as a child soldier in the Sierra Leone Civil War. The whole candor of the story is surprising, as Beah goes into much detail about some of the horrible things he did whilst fighting, and how this has affected him in his adolescence and adulthood. His purpose for writing is not very clear, as he published it a number of years after the war had already ended officially, which is understandable given the things he went through, which leads …show more content…
These boys stay together, travelling and scavenging together until they are broken apart by more warfare. This theme of travelling and struggling to survive is a constant theme throughout the next few chapters of the book, especially when the boys are walking through a village and are attacked, and stripped of their shoes, forcing them to walk on sand in 120o weather. Chapter 12 is one of the most important chapters in the book, as Beah and his group finally are hopeful. They arrive into the village of Yele where they are welcomed and fed. This feeling quickly fades, however, as government soldiers describes his experience being recruited into the army, and being forced to fight in a war he was dragged into, and this is expanded upon in chapter 13, when the real fighting breaks out, with the boys thrust into the middle. Beah describes one of his best friends being killed by an RPG directly in front of him, this grief, mixed with the drugs the men had given him, sends him flying into battle, where he shoots a man dead, and continues shooting anyone he sees until he is ordered to retreat. This follows with extremely common signs soldiers show in war, specifically night terrors, in