A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider (Chapters 13 & 14)

Lily Tikijian
October 22, 2008
Literature Period 6
Mrs. Pfanschmidt

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider
Chapters 13 & 14

These chapters were by far the hardest to get through by far! I thought chapters eleven and twelve were hard but they were nothing compared to these. There was so much gore and violence and blood and hatred, it hurt to read it. Thinking that people could actually be filled with so much hate just scares me. I couldn’t imagine being able to slice open a guys neck with a bayonet or to just shoot some random civilian for nothing. I know that these kids have been trained to think that this is a good thing to kill the rebels, that they are the ones responsible for killing their families and loved ones. Even though this may be true, I don’t think it gives them on excuse to kill boys the same age as them. I have to say that I didn’t read all of these chapters. I had to skip some parts that were a little to graphic for me. I get nauseous just hearing the word blood, I can’t read about it. I find it ironic that just a few weeks ago, these boys couldn’t even hold a gun without shaking and being afraid. At the beginning of the chapter through they are clenching their guns like they are babies, like it is the only thing they have left in the world. Also, through out these chapters, all of the boys are drugged. You can tell that it made a difference in what Ishmael remembers. The memories become more vivid and less complex. One of the things that Ishmael said that shocked me was, “We exhaled quickly, afraid that our own breathing could cause our death.” After that quote things just got worse and worse. Ishmael was talking about how bodies split in half and flew everywhere, how blood poured out of the bullet holes on boys bodies, and how blood was splashed all over his face. I had to stop reading for a while after that. I just couldn’t handle it. When I picked the book back up, the little boy Joshia was tossed onto a tree stump and was stuck and blood was everywhere. Again, I had to stop reading. Ishmael said, “Suddenly, as if someone was shooting them inside my brain, all the massacres I had seen since that day I was touched by the war were flashing in my mind. “ He said he just started to kill everything the moved. He was filled with such anger and hate all he could do was kill. Both of his friends were killed. He said when they got back to the camp he couldn’t feel anything. He didn’t taste water or feel that his knee was bleeding. He is now completely desensitized. He is now so lost to the world except the war that he stopped playing soccer with the other boys, he jus sits around sniffing brown brown and cocaine, which he is obviously now addicted too. The last part of chapter fourteen almost made ma faint, I had to honestly try so hard not to pass out. The boys had a contest to see who could slit the prisoners throat the fastest. It gave every detail from the expression on the victims face to how Ishmael won, it was terrible. These chapters were honestly brutal and unbearable.