Military recruits disproportionately arrive as prior abuse victims, feeding later violence

Evidence

I saw myself holding an AK-47 and walking through a coffee farm with a squad that consisted of many boys and a few adults. We were on our way to attack a small town that had ammunition and food. As soon as we left the coffee farm, we unexpectedly ran into another armed group at a soccer field adjoining the ruins of what had once been a village. We opened fire until the last living being in the other group fell to the ground. We walked toward the dead bodies, giving each other high fives. The group had also consisted of young boys like us, but we didn’t care about them. We took their ammunition, sat on their bodies, and started eating the cooked food they had been carrying. All around us, fresh blood leaked from the bullet holes in their bodies. — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 75 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

That night, as I sat on the verandah listening to some of the boys discuss the volleyball game I had missed, I tried to think about my childhood days, but it was impossible, as I began getting flashbacks of the first time I slit a man’s throat. The scene kept surfacing in my memory like lightning on a dark rainy night, and each time it happened, I heard a sharp cry in my head that made my spine hurt. — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 613 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Traumatized child soldiers relive their violence through persistent nightmares abroad — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 75; Ex-child soldiers experience severe physical pain triggered by traumatic war flashbacks — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 613

Related

• Traumatized child soldiers relive their violence through persistent nightmares abroad (similarity 0.87)
• Ex-child soldiers experience severe physical pain triggered by traumatic war flashbacks (similarity 0.81)
• Instructors induced fury in child soldiers by linking bayonet practice to murdered families (similarity 0.79)
• Removing child soldiers from combat does not immediately eliminate their violent behavior (similarity 0.78)
• Continuous drug use and war films created a totalizing reality for child soldiers (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Traumatized child soldiers relive their violence through persistent nightmares abroad #exemplifies (0.75) — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 75
• Ex-child soldiers experience severe physical pain triggered by traumatic war flashbacks #exemplifies (0.70) — Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy…, 613