Adonay’s Reviews > A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier > Status Update

The brainwashing is still effective in Ishmael and the other boys confusion of reality. The boys have been programmed as soldiers who see the world in terms of "kill or be killed." The confusion among them grows because they don't know how else to act in the regular world. The safety of their new freedom doesn't make any sense in their soldiering minds. They resort to violence because it is all that they know.

Ishmael and the other boy soldiers in the rehabilitation center behave like caged animals. They attack the cook, throw bowls and silverware at the nurses and counselors, break into the medical supplies for drugs, and drag their mattresses out into courtyard in the rain so that they can sleep outside where they are more comfortable. For entertainment, they attack local villagers at the water pump and fight each other

Ishmael keeps walking to survive.He finds himself in forest, high trees and feels safe for the first moments in months. He eats unfamiliar fruit and waits to see if it's poisonous,He also gets chased by wild pigs.His loneliness is overwhelming, but he finds comfort in the sounds of nature.

Ishmael and his family and friends have very little connection to the war that is taking place in their homeland until refugees begin passing through. There are families that have walked hundreds of miles to escape the fighting , Ishmael is most impacted by the fact that the children would not even look at them. They jump at the slightest sound and they are tired and sick. They have seen things that scared them so mu