A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider

Ironically, Ishmael’s migraine headaches cease when his time is structured by “soldierly” activities, including the use of marijuana, “brown brown” (cocaine mixed with gunpowder), and addictive amphetamines. This combination of drugs causes the author to feel numbness and to experience insomnia for weeks on end. The boys watch violent movies at night, hoping to emulate Rambo’s techniques in battle. When they run out of supplies, the unit raids rebel camps and civilian villages. The lieutenant retaliates against a rebel who kills one of his men during an attack by slitting the rebel’s throat with a bayonet.

Ishmael notes that many command decisions appear to be arbitrary. For example, on one occasion, the lieutenant forces civilian villagers to listen to a long, rambling speech highlighting the service that his troops perform for the country. He notes that they are “not like the rebels […] who kill people for no reason” (123). Conversely, a degree of sadism is now present in daily operations. For example, the author and four other boys are selected to participate in a contest. The boy who kills his rope-bound victim the fastest will win the contest. Ishmael, who perceives his prisoner as “simply another rebel who was responsible for the death of my family” (124), is declared the winner of the contest. 

As they roam the country, Ishmael and his cohort reside in captured villages and the forest. He regards his squad, with whom he fights for two years, as the replacement for his family. He feels no pity and writes that “my heart had frozen” (126).

In 1996, the squad meets with a lieutenant to whom Ishmael quoted Shakespeare when first coerced to join the unit. The officer remembers the boy and quotes a line from Macbeth. Later, UNICEF workers meet with the lieutenant who selects fifteen of the boys; they will be sent to school and helped to find “another life” (129). Ishmael is confused and angered; he feels it is disrespectful to separate him from his unit and to put him in a position that requires him to obey directives from civilians. He is fearful because his weapon is taken from him.

The UNICEF truck transports the boys to a fenced compound housing teenage boys in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Each boy is assigned a bed, linens, and toiletries. They eat at a long table in a dining hall and speculate about where they can obtain drugs. A boy from another part of the country assaults Alhaji with a bayonet. Ishmael pulls the pin from the grenade he secretly had in his pants, but the conflict is resolved without violence. Another conflict with former RUF boy soldiers ends violently. When military police officers (MPs) try to stop the fight, the boys assault them and steal their weapons. The skirmish results in two dead boys from Ishmael’s group and four rebels. Later, MPs transport the boys to the Benin Home on the outskirts of the city. Ishmael shakes, and his head hurts, as he undergoes withdrawal from the potpourri of drugs given to his unit daily for the past several years. 

Ishmael and his companions continue to suffer withdrawal symptoms. They are enraged by being “told what to do by civilians” (138) and throw cutlery and benches at therapists enlisted to speak to them. The residents turn against each other and have violent physical fights all day in lieu of recreation. When the storage supply manager, Poppay, does not comply with their request for replacement mattresses after the boys leave theirs in the rain, they stab, kick, and beat him until he is bleeding and unconscious. Poppay returns to work in a few days and explains that the boys’ behavior is not their fault; this enrages them even further.

Ishmael meets the facility’s nurse, Esther, when he injures his hand by punching through a glass window in a classroom. He refuses her attempts at conversation. A few days later, after Ishmael faints from a migraine, Esther cares for him in the infirmary for several days while he recovers. Ishmael awakens and realizes that a lieutenant “city soldier” is in the room with him. This causes a flashback to his own promotion to “junior lieutenant” after he organizes the raid of a village and all of the residents are killed. The lieutenant nicknames Ishmael “Green Snake” because of his ability to remain hidden behind a bush and organize a raid without being noticed.

Within a month, most of the effects of withdrawal are diminished, but Ishmael continues to hallucinate the sight of blood gushing from the faucets instead of water. The boys use their school supplies to create bonfires until Mambu arranges to sell them to street vendors for cash. Accompanied by Mambu and Alhaji, Ishmael uses his money to travel by bus to the center of Freetown. They tour the city, marveling at the tall buildings and the number of people and cars in the area. The Center administrators mandate class attendance in exchange for weekend trips to Freetown, and the boys comply when vendors stop buying their notebooks. The residents continue to exhibit symptoms of PTSD, including waking up choking their roommate, nightmares, and amnesiac episodes. Nevertheless, their schedule takes on some semblance of normalcy.

The author ends this chapter with a description of a gory battle with rebels in a remote village. The soldiers are angry because they are forced to fight for two days in the rain. The lieutenant decides to punish the rebel prisoners by forcing them to dig their own graves and burying them alive. When Ishmael has flashbacks like this, he awakens outdoors with no recollection of how he got there. A staff member wraps him in a blanket and leads him indoors while saying, “This isn’t your fault […] You’ll get through this” (151). 

Esther continues her efforts to befriend Ishmael, and eventually he is receptive. When she buys him a Walkman and rap cassette tapes, he breaks down and tells her about his war years as she listens attentively. He recalls his involvement in an attack on a village during which he is shot in the foot and unable to walk. He is in severe pain and intermittently unconscious as two soldiers carry him back to the base to undergo surgical removal of the bullet. When Ishmael returns to battle, the lieutenant advises him that six captured rebels are the ones responsible for the injury to his foot. While the author is not sure this is correct, he ties their hands, “shot them on their feet and watched them suffer for an entire day before […] shooting them in the head so they would stop crying” (159). Like the other staff members, Esther assures the narrator that none of this is his fault.

Ishmael often tries to recall carefree childhood days but keeps having flashbacks of himself slitting a man’s throat. He experiences a severe migraine, is unable to walk, and cries aloud. He cannot sleep even after the night nurse medicates him due to his fear of nightmares.

Esther and two field workers bring Ishmael to Freetown for a tour of the city and a physical exam. Leslie, one of the workers, buys a rap cassette tape for the narrator. He is fascinated and amazed by the experience; for the first time, he describes himself as being “in high spirits, smiling all the way” (162). This marks a turning point in the young man’s recovery. He memorizes lyrics to the songs on his tape and sings them for Esther. Leslie visits twice a week and discusses the history of Rastafarianism. For the first time since the loss of his family and village, Ishmael dreams about his parents and brothers. One night, Esther invites Ishmael to her home and cooks dinner for him. Afterwards, they walk around the city and look at the moon, causing Ishmael to recall his grandmother’s axiom that the answer to all human emotions may be found in the sky.