Child Soldier is Featured Skeptics Speaker

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoir of a Child Soldier, returned to Blair for an encore as the featured Society of Skeptics speaker on September 28. Ishmael entertained a myriad of questions from students at the conclusion of his program. Prior to his evening presentation, he spent time on campus, speaking with students and faculty and participating in soccer practice, a sport he has long enjoyed. According to Ishmael’s Website, his book is “a gripping story of a child’s journey through hell and back.”

Ishmael noted that he is hard at work on a second book. His Website explains much about his life. “There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than 50 conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words…At the age of 12, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By 13, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabilitation center, he struggled to regain his humanity and to reenter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion.”

To watch a past CBS News video segment featuring Ishmael and much of what he told his Skeptics audience, click here.

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Updated 9/29/2010

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