Brianna Selhorst
Glenn Ames
Contemporary World History
5 December 2007
A Long Way Gone vs. Blood Diamond A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and the recent 2006 film Blood Diamond both depict how it was living in Sierra Leone, Africa during the Civil War in the ‘90’s. While A Long Way Gone focuses on child soldiers and what they had to live and go through for many years, Blood Diamond focuses mainly on how the country is torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war, including the rebels' amputation of people's hands to stop them from voting in upcoming elections. Both the movie and the book try to tackle major issues by asking the questions: how …show more content…

The army inspired and motivated their young soldiers by reminding them that it was “their time to revenge the deaths of their families and to make sure more children did not lose their families,” and that that they were performing “the highest service they could perform for their country.” They also provided the boy soldiers with drugs like cocaine, brown brown (which was a mixture of cocaine and gun powder), and marijuana to control them and make them fearless in battle. Also, over time, the army did not have enough soldiers, so they began to attack villages for supplies to force men and boys to “fight for their country.” Blood Diamond and A Long Way Gone both effectively showed how the rebels and the government gained support, and spread awareness of the issue of children soldiers in Africa. They painted a detailed picture of the horrible events that young men had to witness and participate in, and the struggles they faced during and after the civil war. The next question that both Blood Diamond and A Long Way Gone addresses is the price and impact of war on men, women, children, and society. I feel that both the movie and the book show similar aspects on how people and society are affected because of the war. Many young boys lost all of their family in the chaos of the shootings and had to fend for themselves for the remaining years of the war. Becoming child soldiers on both the government side and the rebels side made many of the boys very