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Long Way Gone Lessons

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Learning a Life Lesson Reading A Long Way Gone, a book about child soldiers, in Sierra Leone during the 1990’s made me feel disgusted because of the treatment of the young children. Reading about the most disturbing sequence in life, dealing with children my age or under made me realize how much life means. I could not imagine ever going through anything that will determine my life well-being. This made me look forward to more in life and appreciate the life I do live, because everyone doesn't have it like I do. In high school, I read A Long Way Gone from that reading it made me start appreciating my life even more. During my reading, I came to discover that the child soldiers did not have a typical childhood like the children nowadays. As a child soldier, their lives were taken from them at a very young age like between the years of six to eighteen years old. Imagine being that young being forced to give up your family and childhood to become a child soldier to kill and to commit other acts of violence. Because of the child soldiering the children saw different things that children should not be able to see like, piles of dead bodies, and large amount of blood. Throughout the book, I grew distraught because it was not too much to be done for the children who lives that were taken away. Mostly, all the children were …show more content…

No family, only the war life they were forced to live. Child soldiers did not have a childhood, neither did they have the right amount of love and affection that they deserved. Life was taken away from these kids, and it was not anything they could do about it. From reading A Long Way Gone, I plan to make a better life for my children in the future and try to prevent the difficulties that happened to the child soldiers from my children. A Long Way Gone, has taught me a valuable lesson to always appreciate everything because there are people around the world that wished they had a better

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635 Words | 3 Pages

Ishmael and other soldiers weren’t normal boys and “a change of environment wouldn’t immediately make us normal boys.”(164). The withdrawal period was very tough, Ishmael “craved cocaine and marijuana so badly”(167) that he had started to fight for no reason. Ishmael and his friends “beat up people from the neighborhood”(168) and sometimes even “threw stones at them.”(168). Ever since the war, Ishmael had lost his innocence and though he was in rehab, he was getting worse before getting better. The child soldiers have been ruthless and hate the civilians, who have no idea how bad the war has been and though innocent, the boys “kicked him relentlessly and left him lying on the floor bleeding and unconscious.”(169).

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648 Words | 3 Pages

Carson Edwards English I Ms. Thaden 10 February 2023 Family Provides Strength Twelve-year-old soldiers, blinded by cocaine, violence, and war, can only find strength through the love of family. Ishmael Beah, in his book, A Long Way Gone, is struggling through the war but keeps going toward the ultimate goal of seeing his family again, proving how the unfailing love of family will give one the strength to persevere through the hardest times. This book shows the instinctual longing for the family during times of need. Beah remembers a quote from his father during the beginning half of his war journey.

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335 Words | 2 Pages

The mass amounts of imagination and passion that a child is able to grasp in their minds at such a young is something that, in most individuals, does not last forever. Children should be able to live carefree childhoods where their imagination is not being replaced by worry and hardships. Once imagination and passion is taken out of a child’s heart and mind, there is no getting that back. In A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah he writes about the emotional and mental changes of the children in his country that have been touched by the war and how he was affected personally as well. Beah recalls, “The children of these families [the refugees] wouldn’t look at us, and they jumped at the sound of chopping wood or as stones landed on roofs…”(5).

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764 Words | 4 Pages

Often referred to as “child soldiers,” these boys and girls suffer extensive forms of exploitation and abuse that are not fully captured by that term”

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641 Words | 3 Pages

“My squad is my family, my gun is my provider and protector and my rule is to kill or be killed. ”(Ishmael Beah)”A long way gone”was written by Ishmael Beah and published in 2007. Ishmael Beah was very happy kid he was really close to his family but they were seperated when the war happened with the rebels, later on he was caught by the rebels but he was able to escape, the rebels killed all his family so he was recruited by the army, they gave him drugs so he wouldn’t feel anything he had no emotions. The three most important scenes in this story include when Ishmael was alone in the jungle, when Ishmael was in the army,and when Ishmael was NYC.

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1110 Words | 5 Pages

Not experiencing war is a luxury many people unfortunately do not get; however, Ishmael Beah, the author of A Long Way Gone, lives and survives the war, though not without heartache. With war there is always fear, death, and hell. Ishmael Beah proves war is hell through the killing of civilians, the distrust, and the after effects of the war. Ishmael proves war is hell through the killing of civilians. Many innocent bystanders of the war are forced out of their homes, made to run for their lives.

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1038 Words | 5 Pages

Many of the child soldiers who were able to leave the war had a tremendous amount of problems. “But at night some of us would wake up from nightmares, sweating, screaming, and punching our own heads to drive out the images that continued to torment us even when we were no longer asleep.” (148) The child soldiers who were rescued and sent to one of the rehabilitation centers still had the same mentality. They were still addicted to drugs, and to killing.

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1454 Words | 6 Pages

Annotated Bibliography Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone. N.p., n.d. PDF file. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a book that retells his own experiences as a child soldier.

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647 Words | 3 Pages

In the book A Long Way Gone a young innocent boy named Ishmael Beah became a soldier at 13 years old. He encounters lots of situations where he has to choose whether he wants to survive or kill to stay alive. During the story, Ishmael was converted from a young boy into a careless, numb soldier. Ishmael was also separated from his family and all throughout his journey he hoped that he would find his family again. Ishmael’s hope to find his family is what kept him going on his journey.

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571 Words | 3 Pages

A Long Way Gone. Ishmael Beah. New York: Sarah Critchton Books, 2007, 229 pages. The theme of this book is to never give up on hope. Hope is what everybody should believe in and have because hope occurred in the past and will be there in the future.

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868 Words | 4 Pages

Many young children under aged have been taken in by the government. They are being held captive tell they are drugged enough and brainwashed to go out and kill or to be killed. They are forced to train to kill under the influence of drugs and they are hardly aware of what they or doing. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because of the absents of their minds and them not being able to process what they are doing. These children are often seen as targets because they are under aged and not able to take responsibility for their actions so they are targeted to be able to kill without punishment.

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473 Words | 2 Pages

An estimated 300,000 children are forced to become soldiers every day all around the world and will be forced to grow up in a war environment. Many teens in African countries have been fighting in the war since the 90s. These children were forced to fight in the war to survive not being killed by a higher power. An estimated 40% of child soldiers are active in Africa. There is a big risk involved with a post-conflict society.

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799 Words | 4 Pages

It taught me that strength and perseverance can make a significant impact in life. I also learned that forgiveness and the ability to forgive is much more powerful than I ever realized. This novel sucked me into the story and its characters and took me on an emotional ride of highs and lows. Finally, it forced me to reevaluate my previous judgement of the homeless.

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946 Words | 4 Pages

The major theme in the story A Long Way Gone is that with family and love a person can make it through anything. Overall Ishmael’s story is a very powerful, eye opening read; it informs people on a subject that some know little to nothing about, the civil war in Sierra Leone. Beah uses the theme of family and love, along with the use of symbolism and other literary devices, to inform a larger audience of the issues that he and others had to face while trying to survive in a war zone. A Long Way Gone, an autobiographical memoir, written by Ishmael Beah, takes place in Sierra Leone during the time of their civil war.

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1422 Words | 6 Pages

Assignment page Video Where many children all over the world merrily and freely live under the protection of the law, for others, this is a distant reality, they live in a world where they’re battling poverty, stripped of their childhood and basic human rights are expunged, they’re the innocent victims of conflict, and war is made to seem their one and only duty, not to mention that these are children no more than 10 years of age. They are put into a situation where it’s to kill or be killed. The United Nations defines a child soldier as, “Any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity.” Since the past 15 years, child soldiers are being used in almost every region of the world. Unlike most children, who go to school, they’re abducted from their families and forced into becoming a child soldier, where living conditions are beyond imaginable.

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