The Trauma of War

‘I ran back to the chopper holding the boy in front of me, my one arm under his shoulders, the other behind his knees, pushing him against my body. We managed to get into the helicopters and took off. Only then did I look down at the face of the body I was cradling in my lap now. Two huge brown eyes stared at me. The stare pierced my mind and heart and all I saw was hatred. Those eyes. They kept staring at me – at the man that came from the sky after wiping out his entire community, who ran off with him into a flying machine… that must have been horrifyingly scary; and had now placed him in a building with strangers. He never cried. Not one tear. No sound. Nothing. Just the eyes. The revelation for me was that he would never have answers to any of his sad and terrifying questions.’

‘This was not something that anyone should ever be part of, let alone an 18 year old child soldier. This box was smashed open only years later when Emma and I were faced with the same decision with regards to our unborn child. I never put it back into the box again and it only strengthened my belief regarding abortion.’

‘All that happened to me was a life lesson that changed my personal opinion, all because of a traumatic experience which no teenager should ever witness.’

‘I tried to think of the prisoners of war who suffered and died where I was sitting. I needed to connect with them, feel their pain and anguish, but I could not. My mind was flooded by my own eyewitness experiences from the war of my own country and for the first time, I wept for them and maybe for myself.’