Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi once said “... no child has ever waged a war; children are victims of war”. Throughout history, wars have continued to go on, but aside from the damage to land and resources, we don’t often look at how the children are affected by the bloodshed. Many times, children are the most impacted by war because they are in the most fragile part of their life. Children growing up during wartime have to struggle with and endure psychological and educational impacts, but somehow, they do grow as a person after it. War time can have a deeper, more mentally involved effect on children. The way that these children have to live and survive during the wartime leaves a psychological imprint on their minds. The author of First they Killed my Father, Loung Ung, has had to deal with these psychological impacts firsthand. When she was about six or seven years old, the Khmer Rouge took in Cambodia had risen to power to form a civilization that has “not been corrupted by the West” (Ung 312). Ung and her family had been sent to an Angkar village to live that type of life. At such a young age, she was told that “capitalists (the people from the city like Ung) should be shot and killed” (Ung 312). Being told that you’re not worthy of life at such a young age can really haunt a child. Just the fact that she was told the way she used to live is not right definitely leaves some sort of impact on a little girl’s mind. However, she’s not the only little girl who was
To be engaged in war is to be engaged in an armed conflict. Death is an all too ordinary product of war. It is an unsolicited reward for many soldiers that are fighting for their country’s own fictitious freedom. For some of these men, the battlefield is a glimpse into hell, and for others, it is a means to heaven. Many people worry about what happens during war and what will become of their loved ones while they’re fighting, but few realize what happens to those soldiers once they come home. The short stories "Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway and "Speaking of Courage” by Tim O'Brien explore the thematic after effects of war and how it impacts a young person's life. Young people who
At 12 years old children should be playing sports and living fun, healthy lives. This is opposite of Beah’s childhood experience. It is difficult for one to imagine the fear that would cripple a child when war is brought to their front door. Beah was just a child when he had to experience the devastation of losing his family. How could a 12 year old properly grieve
War is a traumatizing experience for anyone, but especially for children. A Long Way Gone demonstrates how a child’s innocence can be taken away
Loung Ung 's First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers follows her struggles as a child during the Angkar rule. Children in Cambodia directly suffered from trauma, which obviously dismisses the myth that children experience less pain than adults. The importance of Ung 's book is the emotional impact she has on the reader because she gives a voice to the victims and to the dead. As Americans, this topic, the Cambodian genocide does not get taught commonly in education. It shows the trauma that the citizens went through and how it affected the country.
During the war, a significant amount of things happen to different groups of families in their homeland. There are soldiers that are fighting for the protection of their families and there are many families that are doing anything in their power to stay safe through the chaos. Yet a number of the individuals involved in the conflict have a tendency to try and escape the madness. In spite of the madness, some children have the advantage to escape yet they are equally impacted with long term trauma by the war as those who did not have the opportunity to depart.
The non-fiction article, “Children of War” by Arthur Brice is about four children who were forced to flee war and relocate to the U.S. First off, children in warzones are not a big part of what caused the wars, but are still heavily, negatively affected. For many, life was great and jolly for children before times of war, but when war came about it changed their lives, they lived in fear and terror. They lost family, money, and most devastating, their homes. So they were forced to flee, to many countries around the world, but ultimately they came to the United States. At first life was tricky in the U.S, they struggled with language, culture, and homesickness. Although these teens are living in the U.S today, they hope to go back to their
At first they are children therefore naïve and scared of war. So it becomes a constant process of changing their emotions. Ishmael says “When the soldier stood in front of me, I avoided eye contact, so he straightened my head until my eyes met his. He gave me the gun. I held it in my trembling hands. He then added the magazine, and I shook even more” (109). The war leaders know this so they begin convincing them this is their war by depicting the enemy as the cause of the pain. Lieutenant says to them “‘some of you are here because they have killed your parents or families, others because this is a safe place to be … we need the help of able boys and men to fight these rebels ‘“(106). The kids now feel helpless since they are faced with the ultimatum of either leaving with no rations or fighting for the cause. All things considered they have no choice but to join this war. Now that they have agreed they had to ensure they detested enemies and felt nothing when killing. Lieutenant said “’ they have lost everything that makes them human, they do not deserve to live. That is why we must kill every single one of them…’” (108). ironically, that quote is essentially what the soldiers are doing to the kids verbalized. After a while the army breaks the children and they have lost all of their innocence and all that is left is war hardened. Beah says “I could become angry, yes, begin to visualize
First a quote from “Armed & Underage” is “Their growth has been stunted by conflict-induced famines, their psyches damaged by all the killings they have witnessed.” The quote is showing that children who should be going through a fun childhood are now scarred by mass killings of other soldiers because of the wars and conflicts going on in their respective countries. This is also showing that all young kids going into the
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “It is estimated that about 30 out of every 100 (or 30%) of Vietnam Veterans have had PTSD in their lifetime” (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs). PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder, is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a psychological reaction occurring after experiencing a highly stressing event (such as wartime combat, physical violence, or a natural disaster) that is usually characterized by depression, anxiety, flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and avoidance of reminders of the event” (Merriam-Webster). In The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, the main character Kien goes through scary, traumatic events of people being killed. Kien thinks about those past experiences constantly throughout the novel.
In 1975, The Khmer Rouge became the ruling political party of Cambodia after overthrowing the Lon Nol government. Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society. They wanted to form an anti-modern, anti-Western ideal of a restructured “classless agrarian society'', a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. The Khmer Rouge revolutionary army enforced this mostly with extreme violence. The book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers”, written by Luong Ung, is the author’s story of growing up during this time period. She was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came
Some examples of the terrible trauma that child soldiers went through, can be found in the memoir A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah. War is a terrible thing, and is portrayed so in the memoir. Beah’s village had been burned down by the rebels in his country, so he was forced to run and find food, water, and shelter at just twelve years old. He was ripped apart from his family and forced into hiding until the army recruited him along with other children. Beah made a statement on this, saying that: “We had no choice. Leaving the village was as good as being dead” (Beah, 107). This quote explains perfectly what most children go through when they are confronted on whether or not to join the war. They either join the war and hope to live to see another day, or they don’t and die. Plain and simple. Yet, when he got into the war he might have been better off dead. Beah, and countless other children, were exposed to terrible things. For example, he witnessed his friend Josiah get shot and die stating that: “As I [Beah] watched him [Josiah], the water in his eyes was replaced with blood that quickly turned his brown eyes into red” (118). Beah also witnessed numerous dead bodies, that he usually had ended up killing, watched his commander shoot people point blank or watched him slit their throats. The children would cheer, all drugged up and
In the year 1945 the United Nations was established with a goal in mind: to create unity and peace throughout the world’s countries. This was created due to disputes and disagreements that led to wars, such as World Wars I and II. The emergence of new age war technologies led to a more brutal and long lasting war. As well as the new weapons, a new battle technique arose, trench warfare. This led to days and even weeks of doing absolutely nothing in the disease filled holes. The brutality and experiences these children faced in this particular war is unmatched. Their moral values became foggy, their personalities changed, and for the rest of their lives would be haunted by the experiences of war. By continual recollection
Therefore, children were usually forced into such dangers as the frontlines of open conflict or either sent ahead of other troops to ensure that possible minefields were safe, whilst in rare cases children have also been used in suicide missions. In addition to this, the majority of child soldiers have transformed their situation in the war into a kind of game, because they are unable to fully comprehend or accept the real consequences that war can inflict. In a way, by making the war into a game it is a coping mechanism for these children.
Around 120,000 adolescent children are now engaged in conflicts throughout Africa (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 4). In Sudan, for instance, thousands of children, some as young as 12, were recruited against their will into separatist and government groups (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 5). Thousands more children have been enlisted into the armed forces throughout Asia and the Pacific. The most significant numbers are in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and recently, Cambodia. Myanmar, a country in Asia, has some of the most child soldiers throughout the world, with children being recruited into both non-government and government armed forces (“Child Soldiers: An Overview” 6). The number of child soldiers has been decreasing annually, but these children are still being taken against their will.
We have all seen or read about the political and social upheavals caused by war. Some may have even experienced it first-hand. Throughout history war has had negative psychological implications on those effected. However, there is no greater negative impact of war than the psychological and emotional turmoil that it causes individual soldiers.