One Day the Soldiers Came by Charles London Read Free Book Online Page A

allure for most of the children I met; they longed for the classroom the way children in the West tend to long for the playground. There are a variety of reasons for this, but in most cases I imagine it had to do with two major factors: a break from the harsher world outside of school and the belief that through learning they can improve their situation in life. For most children affected by war (indeed for many poorer children not affected by war), life consists of a hard regime of work. One tends the flocks or works to earn money for the family or helps with the cooking and cleaning and carrying water and wood. Out of school, one is exposed to all manner of perils, the same perils that face grown-ups, and one must usually face these perils alone. In school, however, a child can sit and play; can spend time with other children and not have to do any of the labor that comes outside the schoolhouse walls. One’s only job in school is to learn. Children in school socialize; they feel like part of a community, a feeling that is all too scarce during times of war. Socializing in school is an immenseprivilege for children who have spent most of their days as soldiers or beggars or touts for busses and brothels or as prostitutes. School provides a level of stability that most young people long for and that most young people experiencing war cannot find anywhere else.
    In addition to the benefits of being in school, children want the benefits they believe school will provide. They want to learn skills that will create opportunities; they want knowledge, which they believe will give them choices in life. For children of war, school becomes a pathway out of the present suffering and into the future, a future filled with stability, safety, and prosperity. Unfortunately, school is not a possibility for most children in regions affected by armed conflict. In the Democratic Republic of Congo only about 35 percent of school age children attend school and that percentage is no doubt lower in the war-ravaged east of the country. Paul and other former child soldiers want the future that schooling can give as a way to avoid the future that they know soldiering will give them. From Paul’s point of view, without an education he will have no hope for a future that is any better than his past.
    Paul taught me a great deal about children in situations where violence and hardship are the norm. He showed me that the young have the capacity not only to survive but to act with altruism. In trying to help others escape from the Mayi Mayi, he was exercising a moral will that fails many adults in dangerous situations. He had learned the political rhetoric of his militia and seemingly understood it, yet he could be critical of it, framing it first from the point of view of his commanders, and then, later in our talk, considering the Rwandan position, that they needed to fight the interhamwe .
    I thought about our soccer game again. Paul’s warm consideration for the other players struck me profoundly. I wish Ihad asked him more about his feelings for the other kids in the center. I can only make assumptions from what I saw when we played, but his sense of the situation of others, whether they were the enemy army or other players fallen in the mud during a game, suggested a possibility I had never before considered: through the crucible of violence and hardship, some children can develop deep moral sensibilities and can flourish as individuals.
    “I regret my time in the army,” he said when I asked him what he would tell the leaders who caused the war if he had the chance. “I would like to say to other children not to join the army. To those who cause war I have nothing to say because I am too young. If I had power….”
    His voice trailed off here, and he looked at the floor. Paul seemed to recognize the sidelining of children’s views and experiences. “I am too young,” he said, but I wondered how that could be possible. Since he had fought