Child Soldier - Ishmeal Beal's Experience

This video is an interview with Ishmeal Beal a former child soldier. When he was still at a very young age he was forced to become a soldier. He had become a child solider in a militia that had overrun the government where he lived. In the interview he describes his experiences and talks about the challenges that he had to overcome. He was changed mentally and forcefully made take drugs. The militia commander abused his metal state and made him, along with others, turn into killers and made them have the will to kill.


Connections:

I cannot make any connections to my own life since i am grateful to have to go through what Ishmeal Beal had to. I can make a connection to a TV show that i watch which is called Graceland. The show is about the DEA and FBI. In the show they show a scene in which a character is forcefully injected with a drug. The person injecting the drug makes the character get addicted to it and gives the drug to him once every week and than continues until his body craves it. This happens to child soldiers, once they are addicted to the drug and their body craves it, the militia's can use that drug as a reward and tell the children that if they follow orders they can get the drug, and since they got hooked to the drug and their body can't function properly any more without the drug, they end up following the orders.

Concepts:

One thing that you should hold on from the text is the fact that he is now living a perfect live and goes to school. Even after all the things that he had to go through as a KID, he moved on and even ended up writing a book that was published. This goes to show that your past does not determine your future. With the right mind set you can conquer anything.

Challenges:

One thing that i would want to argue with the text is that it blames video games for the increase in violence. First off, most games that show drugs, violence and other things like that are rated M for Mature, and its for people 18 years and older. Nobody cares to notice that kids at the age of 10 are playing games meant for people 18 years or older. The reason to why the games are suggested for people 18 years or older is because they have matured enough to understand that it is just a game but kids at the age of 10 might not understand that and take the game to serious. If parents cared to read the game that their kids want to buy than there wouldn't be this problem. Even than, video games are not the cause for violence.