Ishmael Beah

Last night, I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish reading A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah’s account of his years as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Mr. Beah, who recently completed his undergraduate degree at Oberlin, has lived in the United States since 1997.

Some of you may have read the startling excerpt from his book in "http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/magazine/14soldier.t.html?ex=1326430800&en=18db63da3854259e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss"> The New York Times Magazine a few weeks back. It was that article that prompted me to buy the book, which I actually picked up at my local grocery store (!).

As you might expect, a book about a boy who had an AK-47 shoved into his hands after suffering the trials of Job during his country’s civil war, is not happy reading.

I have never been so afraid to go anywhere in my life as I was that first day. As we walked into the arms of the forest, tears began to form in my eyes, but I struggled to hide them and gripped my gun for comfort. We exhaled quietly, afraid that our own breathing could cause our deaths. The lieutenant led the line that I was in. He raised his fist in the air, and we stopped moving. Then he slowly brought it down, and we sat on one heel, our eyes surveying the forest. We began to move swiftly among the bushes until we came to the edge of a swamp, where we formed an ambush, aiming our guns into the bog. We lay flat on our stomachs and waited. I was lying next to my friend Josiah. At 11, he was even younger than I was. Musa, a friend my age, 13, was also nearby. I looked around to see if I could catch their eyes, but they were concentrating on the invisible target in the swamp. The tops of my eyes began to ache, and the pain slowly rose up to my head. My ears became warm, and tears were running down my cheeks, even though I wasn’t crying. The veins on my arms stood out, and I could feel them pulsating as if they had begun to breathe of their own accord. We waited in the quiet, as hunters do.