A Soldier's Journey Book Summary

The American Revolution marked the history of many heroic events that immaculately stand as true inspirations for the generations to come in the United States. Even today, the gallantry of a few soldiers that won independence for the country is not only kept in the hearts of the people but run in the American blood to demonstrate acts of valor at times of war and hardships. One such story recorded in the history dates back to 1776, about a sixteen-year old juvenile, Joseph Plumb Martin, joined the Rebel Infantry and recorded his tribulations about forty-seven years in a memoir titled as “A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier”. The book mainly focuses on the sufferings through the tough situation he went through.

The biography, A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah, tells the story of a thirteen year old boy who spends his childhood being compelled to fight in the civil war in Sierra Leone. Ishmael Beah tries to avoid fighting for the rebels by running from town to town with his friends as the rebels advanced. Finally, his luck runs out and Ishmael Baeh is forced to serve in the civil war for the rebels. The story goes on to describe his horrific childhood as a soldier in Sierra Leone and his eventual rescue by Unicef and rehabilitation center. In this passage, Ishmael Beah created a mental image that allows us to visualize how disturbing and how unreal living in wartone Sierra Leone during the early 1980’s.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah was published by Sarah Crichton Books in New York on February 13th, 2007. In the memoir, Beah describes his terrifying experiences as a child soldier in Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa, during the Sierra Leone Civil War that took place during the 1990s and early 2000s. Despite a confusing, unclear end to the story, the main idea of the account on how war can damage and alter an individual and country in ways never thought possible before is effectively revealed through Beah’s strong, detailed descriptions of war in Sierra Leone, along with genuine and unforgettable words that make you wonder how you could ever complain about your childhood again. While reading Ishmael Beah’s story, it became quite apparent to me that the main point for writing his powerful memoir was for his audience to discover how war can damage and forever change a human being, as well as a country as a whole in the most unimaginable ways.

A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, Some of the Adventures, Dangers, Sufferings by Joseph Plumb Martin, is a collection of tales starting from when he was just a young boy at the age of seven and quickly goes through his childhood on the farm with his grandparents on his mother's side. Mr. Martin describes his memories from a much later stage in his life at the age of 70 in the year 1830. This is the tales of the crippling weather conditions, terrible living conditions and war stories told by a young enlisted soldier during the war. Mr. Martin was born to a preacher and his wife in 1760 in western Massachusetts. The story begins when he was just a young boy who was sent to live with his grandparents on a farm.

In Soldier from the War Returning, Thomas Childers writes that “a curious silence lingers over what for many was the last great battle of the war.” This final battle was the soldier’s return home. After World War II, veterans came back to the United States and struggled with stigmatized mental illnesses as well as financial and social issues. During the war, many soldiers struggled with mental health issues that persisted after they came home.

Soldier Boys was written by Dean Hughes. The book was published in 2001. The setting starts off with a couple of young boys who want to sign up for the war but their to young to sign up on their own so they have to have their parents permission to sign up. The book goes back an d forth between the americans and the germans because the book talks about both sides of the war. The book is fiction.

All survivors from 21st century wars have traumatic memories that people can sympathize for and stories that are cringe worthy. Two 21st century war autobiographies that exemplify how gruesome the war was in Sierra Leone, Africa are The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara and A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. These real accounts from children who grew up during these hard times give insight on how the standards of life have changed.

This novel was a great reading experience! It expands one’s knowledge about the effects of war and the writing techniques will be a great help to young writers. It also brings awareness to the war effects towards children. This novel has character, emotions, and a great inspiration to writers with similar stories that are needed to be shared with the

Could you imagine having to run away from your home and your family because of a terrible war in your village? According to the Tennessee Office for Refugees, “It is a badge of strength courage, and victory to be a refugee.” In the novel, A Long Walk To Water, by Linda Sue Park, a young boy named Salva is a Southern Sudan refugee, a “Lost Boy”. He shows strength, courage and bravery when he makes his journey to escape war. Salva is stuck in his war struck village, and he needs to show these qualities if he ever wants to make it to a safe place.

See the dead can change someone. In the writing of “An Ordinary Soldier on Campaign with Napoleon” Walter give hints of this and other things in it as a foreshadowing of future issue for the army as a whole. There is a great deal of information in his writing to be found about the idea of this. Walter’s work may also be able to give insight of how some of the basic foot soldiers were feeling and seeing under Napoleon’s command. The document reveals that some in the army were already losing their morale, that the writer did not want to be there, and what a soldier was seeing in the campaign.

4 Different Aspects of New York and Sierra Leone Discussed in A Long Way gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah presents a sharp comparison between the life in New York and Sierra Leone in his book A Long Way gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. These differences are based on his own personal experiences as a native of Sierra Leone and a resident in New York. Beah was a teenage soldier in his native town during the civil war that his country faced during the 1990’s. He participated in that war as a teenage soldier representing his government against the rebel fighters.

Comparing texts can enrich experiences for readers by allowing audiences to grasp a further understanding of underlying themes within a text, and how they have the ability to challenge reader’s perspectives. Anh Do’s autobiographical memoir, The Happiest Refugee (2010), discusses the highs and lows of growing up in Australia as a Vietnamese refugee, during a time where racial intolerance and scepticism towards foreigners was common. Do has constructed themes that through the use of various literary devices, work towards altering audience’s stereotypical perspective of refugees, instead replacing it with a less critical and more accepting viewpoint; these themes are also explored in other texts. Themes surrounding resilience, family bonds and

Have you ever thought what it felt to be a young 11 year old in a war in Africa all alone without his family? Salva is an eleven year old boy from the Dinka tribe in South Sudan. Salva experienced one of the worst things that could happen to a kid, his family being torn apart by war. The war took place between June 5, 1983 and January 9, 2005. It took mostly in South Sudan because the muslim government wanted the tribes to practice the muslim religion.

In Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” (1925), Hemingway begins his short story with a series of phrases that immediately take the glory out of this soldiers trip to war. He right off the bat wants to make it known that this will not be a story about how wonderful and heroic this experience was for the character. He begins by saying, “Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does not show in the picture.”

Before preceding to introduce my arguments in this methodological essay, it is essential to answer a simple question, i.e., what triggered me to write it? My plain answer is curiosity. A curiosity to seek answer to so many questions that are hovering over my head. Including: How do you capture the imagination of young refugee, more specifically the imagination of unaccompanied refugee minors? How do you do it that when young refugees are actually going through major uncertainties in their lives?