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(the ex-child soldier
ishmael beah)

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[Ishamael Beah] And when the war started I was a little boy.

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Um... and the war reached my part of the country

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and it disrupted everything that I knew as a kid.

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I was separated from my family, running constantly for my life.

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During that time my immediate family was killed in the war,

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so my Mother, Father and two brothers were killed.

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I was the second born in a family of three.

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[Anderson Cooper] How old were you?

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[Beah] At this, at this point I was 12 years old, when...

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[Cooper] 12 years old?

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[Beah] Yes,

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between 12 and 13 and then I ended up going to a military base actually looking for safety.

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And it was at this military base, with the Sierra Leone Armed forces, that I was actually forced to be a soldier.

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Trained at the age of 13 how to fight in the middle of war.

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Trained for a week and then war became my life.

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I became a soldier for close to 3 years.

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[Cooper] For you, what does World Humanitarian Day mean?

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[Beah] Well, for me it means, I think, its just reaffirming the faith in everyone in the world,

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that we have a responsibility to help each other if we live in this world.

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We must live our lives for other people not just for ourselves.

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The reason why I'm possible,

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is because somebody decided one day that they would do something for somebody else.

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The UNICEF worker who went to the bush to negotiate with the warlord that they did not like.

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The person who worked at the rehabilitation center.

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The woman in New York who decided to adopt a former child soldier

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who everybody thought was only capable of violence.

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So all of these moments when people stop to do something very simple for somebody

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changed my life completely, and made me possible.

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So for me this is, this is what I look at this day for.

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[Cooper] And you're passing it along to others.

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[Beah] Yes, certainly. [Applause]
[Cooper] Right, thank you.

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(I Was Here - World Humanitarian Day August 19
whd-iwashere.org)