‘A Long Way Gone’ opens eyes

About two years ago, I purchased I thought an appropriate evening read to go along with a course I was taking in international law and organizations; I ended up with something completely unexpected. I found myself disturbed at night as I read, unwilling to put the book down and unable to sleep when I finally did.”A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is the personal account of the author, Ishmael Beah, and his struggles during Sierra Leone’s civil war. In it, he depicts his separation from his family, his day-to-day survival, and his eventual coerced enlistment by government forces as a boy. It is here that the author is at his most tragically descriptive-becoming a ruthless child soldier, he descends into a world of narcotics and violence.Eventually, Beah is rescued by UNICEF, and over the course of a slow rehabilitation, begins the heartbreaking process of regaining his humanity. In the country’s capital city of Freetown, the young boy is able to look to his future, and is selected to speak to the United Nations about his struggles, and eventually flees his war-torn homeland, to find safety in the United States.I’ll be honest, folks. This book is definitely not a light-hearted piece of reading material. Beah tears into our souls as he makes you watch a young boy be stripped of his innocence and sense of mercy, reduced to a weapon of war and little else. Your heart will ache as you bear witness to his painful recovery. It will lead even the most stoic reader to tears. That said, it’s a book you should read. As tragic a story it may be, it is one that shows the resilience of the spirit human, and proves the ability of mankind to redeem itself. It’s also, unfortunately, all too relevant to events across the world today. In many corners of the earth, children are pressed into military service by both governments and rebel groups alike, their childhoods robbed of them. It’s a subject that doesn’t make the headlines all too often, but is a nightmarish reality for many. Recent examples include the use of Maoist insurgents in Nepal, and their infamous deployment by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. It’s obviously not an isolated occurrence on any one continent.A Long Way Gone will open your eyes to a terrible reality that is a fact of life for too many young people. It will not be a happy experience- but it will be one that will make you grow as a person.