Page 113: Line 1, the sleeping Sheku and Josiah.
"Paw paw, boom"
"One, two."
This is another reason why Ishmael left Sierra Leon. Instead of smiling while they sleep, these nine and eleven year old boys are visualizing the deaths of their enemies. Instead of sleeping soundly they are chanting the sounds of gunshots and them stabbing their enemies with bayonets.
This makes me wonder about the thoughts of the commander in this outpost of the army. What kind of man would make soldiers out of boys. Even when they need stools to even lift, let alone shoot their weapons.
What kind of man makes soldiers out of boys?
Page 115: Line 20, the corporal.
"If you see anyone without a head tie of this color or a helmet like mine, shoot him"
There is no difference between the enemy, and the people that are watching your back in these battles. The only thing that marks them as your enemy is a colored ribbon you wear that they don't. They look just like you. They probably could be next to you if they had been in a different place at a different time.
This is where I start to judge the character of the rebels? Are they really all that bad? Most of them are just kids. Forced into whatever role they now play. Just as the army forces children into their power. It's all about what side your on, but that's decided as simply as who you run into when your running, and everyone is running.
Is the army and better than the rebels? How?
3 comments:
Question 1:
I think a man who makes soldiers out of kids is a man who really feels as if it is the best way to defend his country/fight for his freedom. For the lieutenant I know that he would do anything for his country.
Question 2:
Also, I think the army is little better than the rebels. They too burn villages and kill civilians, just for different reasons, also they do not rejoice in the killing. However, many of the rebels are fighting for the same reason many people in the army are fighting, the others killed their family.
Andy Brooks.
Response 1: This quote was recreating the sounds the boys heard all day. The boys were always trying not to think of the bad times, but they were constantly hearing gunfire and bullets spraying in the nearby villages.
Answer 1: There were 2 kinds of men in Sierra Leone. The rebels who killed innocent people and the men who were defending their families and homes. The rebels fought very dirty. Recruiting young boys to kill show how cowardly and desperate the rebels really were.
I think that the general thinks he knows the cause, but actually doesn't. All they do is raid the rebels, but what do the rebels want? And if either side were to win, what would they do with all the power? I think they would just make a new country, and a new uprising would happen and it is the same story over again. I think that both sides are fighting for nothing that they think is something. As far as we know they all want a nicer place. And they think that the only way to get is to take it by force and some casualty's are fine, but really if they worked together to make a sort of combined country they could make a stronger country. They could focus all their reasorses that were in their military to police the citys so no out brakes happen.
I can't really say witch side is better, because they never tell us any facts or details about the war to show who is good. They both take kids, give them guns, and make them kill each other. The people who do this either have no idea what actually is going on or just like war. It seems like each side really doesn't know whats going on, except for the fact that they have one order from their heads, To Kill All The Rebels.
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