In a Way Long Gone

In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, many events change his life and he has to choose to live with them or die. Ishmael has changed because of several major events that he lived through and has adapted and that has helped him survive in his war ravaged country. He has changed from young, innocent boy to mindless child solider to a proper adult but he still survives and that makes him very resilient.

Though it was hard he found himself amongst war. One of the first major events was that he lost his parents. He was in Mattru Jong when rebels attacked his home in Mogbwemo. Slowly by surely wounded people started trickling in and he found out that way that he had lost his parents. His parents weren’t dead, just lost in the country. That changed him because it was the first of many wounds on his body and soul. Throughout the book he searches for them but they remain elusive and not inflicting wounds on the mortal body but instead ripping a large hole in his heart. “The sun peacefully sailed through the white clouds, birds sang from tree tops, the trees danced to the quiet wind. I still couldn’t believe the war had actually reached our home. It was impossible, I thought. We had left home the day before, there had been no indication the rebels were near.” (Beah, 10)He couldn’t believe it. It was just not possible. Your home is a fortress until it shatters.

The second major event was becoming a boy solider at a young age. “The idea of death didn’t cross my mind at all and killing had become as easy as drinking water. My mind had not only snapped during the first killing, it had also stopped making remorseful records, or so it seemed.” (Beah, 122)When in the war he took drugs, killed people but his mind was a blank so all he could think about was killing, the enemy, and where to get his next fix. This could cause mental health issues that he has to live with, as well as an abusive drug addiction that could create some problems in his physical