A Long Way Gone Analysis

Ishmael lives a peaceful life, he wakes up and enjoys the time he gets and love every part of the sun he sees. He didn’t get to have this privilege when he was 16 years old. He had to face all the devastating events that left him despondent. Ishmael was useless, he was forced to join one of the child soldier armies to fight for his side. Ishmael joined the army with his innocence as a kid, but as he proceeded through days and days of being a child soldier, he became more violent with killing people in his sight and leaving people with wounds. Ishmael’s issue is common to the people in many parts of the world. In fact, there are 300,000 child soldiers that are active and fighting this conflict right now. Though many children are forced to fight …show more content…
Some will argue that the child soldiers should be prosecuted for the crimes and their murders they caused. Despite, what others say, child soldiers should be given amnesty because it wasn’t their fault or that they have suffered and gone through many horrible moments in their life. Child soldiers should be given amnesty because it wasn’t their fault and had didn’t have the choice to. For example, the child soldiers were brainwashed and were taught to do violent things. According to the book, A Long Way Gone, they were abducted and were taken away to learn to kill others to stay alive in a war zone. It says, “My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed,” (Beah, 2007). This demonstrates child soldiers like him were specifically taught to use their gun to protect themselves from other people. Ishmael was taught violent things by learning “my rule is to kill or be killed.” He is killing other people to stay alive. He was in a devastating part of his life and was forced to learn this rule so he wouldn‘t die. This rule made his life change and started to show that his mind is starting to go on to the violent side. The commander trained him to make Ishmael to make him