Meet Ishmael Beah. Sierra Leonean, American, political science major, humanist, hip-hop lover, witty, funny, good-looking, one of the guys. Oh, and he also used to be a child soldier. Now he is the author of the book, A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier.” It is definitely a book worth reading, to gain an inside understanding of what it’s like to live in the thick of a civil war, and then end up fighting in it.Beah brings a personal dimension to war, which is often overlooked by the structural problems of the world and of the incredible violence that is reported. When I typically think about soldiers in a war, the following questions quickly pop to the top of my head: Who is he fighting for? Who is he fighting against? Why is he fighting? Then I think about the reasons for the war: Is it for money? Nationalism? Religion? Tribalism? All of these questions are important.
But Beah transcends these questions and brings war to a very simple level. Beah fights because he was placed in a war-torn circumstance. He doesn’t fight for money, or for his country. Not for diamonds or for his tribe. He fights because that is what he had to do to survive at that particular moment. When reading this book, I got the sense that Beah could have been anybody.
I had the chance to recently hear Beah speak. In the discussion that followed, a professor in the audience commented that we had child soldiers in the United States, but that they go by the name of Vicelords, Crips, Bloods, GDs, etc. He was right. And they are just normal kids like all of us.
Which brings me to a funny story that sums all this up. When I went to hear Beah speak, I jumped on the elevator and a beautiful girl walked in after me. We began talking, and we immediately hit it off; we were both going to hear Beah speak. After the discussion, we began speaking again. She asked me what I do, and then she told me that she was an actress. My face dropped. She even said to me, “I am so glad I met you.” This was my lucky day. Finally, we were waiting outside the elevators in one of those awkward “how do we say goodbye moments” and Beah walked by. Beah got on the elevator, and asked her, “You coming?” (They had obviously known each other, or had planned to go out afterwards). The elevator closed and I was left there alone.
Not only is he a normal man like all of us. But he is a stud too.
