Tue. Feb. 28, 2012
Lecture - Ishmael Beah - 3/12/09
Ishmael talks about his book "A Long Way Gone" at a event on the campus of IUPUI
Ideas: Ishmael Beah
Uploaded by WVIZPBS on Feb 11, 2008
You'd not think that a graduate of Oberlin College would actually be a battle hardened veteran who may have killed dozens of people, before being rescued and brought to the United States. But in the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. We'll share a conversation with a man who was a soldier in Sierra Leone, when he was still just a child.
Former child soldier Ishmael Beah recounts his past
Allan Gregg in conversation with...Ishmael Beah, Born in Sierra Leone, Beah, now twenty-six
years old, tells a powerfully gripping story: At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and
wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the
government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible
acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at
his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and, finally, to
heal. His book is called "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier"
