Farrar, Straus and Giroux Ishmael Beah — A Long Way Gone- Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

24 published claims from this book.

• A child resolved an impossible parental dilemma by eliminating the threat
• A seven-year-old survivor wished to dismember a French soldier
• Child soldiers joined the army primarily for survival and revenge.
• Civil war destroys social trust by transforming children into feared enemies.
• Continuous drug use and war films created a totalizing reality for child soldiers
• Ex-child soldiers experience severe physical pain triggered by traumatic war flashbacks
• Grown men in this society cried only when forced beyond choice
• Instructors induced fury in child soldiers by linking bayonet practice to murdered families
• Mothers carried dead infants unknowingly or in shock from attacks.
• Ordinary nature walks trigger vivid flashbacks of wartime executions for former soldiers
• Ordinary people can commit extreme brutality under the right circumstances
• Rebels mutilated civilians by carving RUF initials and chopping fingers
• Rebels targeted fleeing civilian vehicles, killing entire families during transport.
• Refused family acceptance drove rehabilitated child soldiers back to war
• Removing child soldiers from combat does not immediately eliminate their violent behavior
• Severe psychological trauma creates impenetrable mental barriers against pre-war memories
• Teenage rebels wore looted luxury goods and multiple watches
• Ten-year-old Algerian orphans in refugee camps carried fierce and precise vengeance fantasies
• The warlord economy made literacy worthless as a route to success
• Traditional village stories forced children to confront impossible moral dilemmas
• Traumatic combat loss triggered uncontrolled firing and emotional numbness in child soldiers
• Traumatized child soldiers relive their violence through persistent nightmares abroad
• Walking barefoot on sun-heated coastal sand causes severe flesh damage.
• War conditions render accumulated money useless and force starvation survival tactics