More Than a Movie

Blood was running down her dress and dropping behind her, making a trail. Her child had been shot dead as she ran for her life. Luckily for her, the bullet didnt go through the babys body It was a girl, and her eyes were still open, with an interrupted innocent smile on her face. The bullets could be seen sticking out just a little bit in the babys body and she was swelling (Beah 13). This may seem like an excerpt of an unsettling Hollywood movie script, but for many around the world, this is a numbing reality. Like Ishmael Beah, former soldier and author of A Long Way Gone, children today are still forced into revolution and killed. Reading A Long Way Gone, I was shocked and deeply disturbed. Beah was about twelve when he fled attacking rebels in Sierra Leone and wandered alone in a land filled with violence. My little brother is also twelve, and I cannot even fathom him travelling the country alone. Imagining my baby brother utterly alone in the world and gunning people down almost brings me to tears. Beah describes this experience like this: Suddenly, as if someone was shooting them inside my brain, all the massacres I had seen since I had been touched by war began flashing in my head. Every time I stopped shooting to change my magazines and saw my two young lifeless friends, I angrily pointed my gun into the swamps and killed more people (119). At the meager age of fifteen, the same age my classmates, Beah had been transformed by hate and revenge. His innocence stolen, he had become the very figure he feared when fleeing the rebels. Beahs story reminds me of the child soldiers in Burma. According to DoSomething.org, around 70,000 boys currently serve in the Burma National Army, ready to fight. Another report from the Human Rights Watch claims that Burma has the largest number of child soldiers, and the number is growing. The Burmese Army and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have

been fighting since June 2011, and the fighting has recently intensified. Like Sierra Leone, Burma has been torn apart by revolution. However, Burma and Sierra Leone are just a couple of the countries engaging in child soldering. Around the world, an estimated 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are currently participating in armed conflicts in approximately thirty countries. Beah is just one surviving story of hundreds of thousands, and unfortunately, not all soldiers are as lucky as him. An estimated two million children have died over the last decade as a cause of war. These petty revolutions have not only caused the deaths of the soldiers fighting, but thousands of civilians as well. How much is enough? How many people have to die before they realize their cause is naught? With all this horror going on in the world, it leads me to think about what I would do in such a situation. Would I flee the country in search of peace? Would I take up a gun and avenge my family? What if I was killed before I could make such a life-changing decision? This book relates to us, and not just for a what if scenario in our heads. The book has taught me, specifically, that even though my day may be going entirely wrong, 300,000 children somewhere are having a much worse day than I am. For them, child soldiering is much more than a movie script or a front-page headline. They live it every day. Whats worse is that they cant picture a better future, one where they dont have to pick up a gun and fight for the freedom of their country every day. They picture life in the war or death. This horrifying mistreatment of children, their innocence, and their futures must end, and I hope we will live to see that day.

Works Cited
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. New York: Sarah Crichton Books. 2007. "7 Countries That Use Child Soldiers." Do Something. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2013. <http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/7-countries-use-child-soldiers>. Vrieze, Paul. "Child Soldiers Forced to Fight in Burma's Kachin Conflict." The Irrawaddy Magazine. N.p., 24 Jan. 2013. Web. 02 Mar. 2013. <http://www.irrawaddy.org/archives/25026>. "World's Highest Number of Child Soldiers." Human Rights Watch. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2013. <http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/10/15/burma-worlds-highest-number-childsoldiers>. Children In A World Of Violence." Children In Need Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2013. <http://www.childreninneed.com/magazine/violence.html>.