Johnny Mad Dog

Those child soldiers came up with some creative war names! Giap, Ibi Amin, I had to look up some of these people who I forgot about, and they are coming up with these names through their blood and drug hazed minds! Here is a fun activity, try and think of a really bad ass name that wouldn't sound stupid to use in war, I'll wait.......harder than you think isn't it.

I really respect how the novel was written, in the aspect that the story bounced from one character to the next. I liked even more that sometimes they met up, even though toward the end I thought it a little too coincidental that they were always crossing paths, as if the Roaring Tigers were the only relevant militia force in the city. And the ending was a little too "tied with a bow" for me, it didn't fit with the rest of the book.
Sidebar: I wonder if city sectors are really called Sarajevo, Kandahar and so on, at first I thought they were the cool war nicknames given by the militiamen to different parts of the city.
Ok, back. What I liked even more was the amount of detail each character gave to sections of the novel. For instance, when both our character are on the road and Laokole almost gets hit by Mad Dog in his vehicle, they both had different views on the situation. At one point Mad Dog acted that if the people would get out of their way and stop running then they wouldn't have to kill them, possibly a cooping mechanism for the atrocities that they enact. Another scene that they described differently was at the Aid station midway through the novel. Each person thought that different parts of the story was more important than the other. Mad Dog focused on the event, the woman, his feelings; Laokole focused on not knowing what was happening, her fear and the cheering of the crowd when the soldiers left. Laokole also missed that troops positioned themselves in position to take out the militia...or Mad Dog made it up to make himself seem like a capable leader, we really don't know.

Something cool Emmanuel Dongala touched on slightly that I feel is often left out in talks about child soldiers, or perhaps my mind is just simply too male oriented, but Lovelita being a child soldier and female was great. There are female child soldiers, one even has a book out there I need to order and read, but when pictures are taken of child soldiers it is generally of boys carrying weapons and outfitted ridiculously. I feel the media gives a bias when it comes to child soldiers, but at the end of the day, girls, as well as boys, can kill people.

The ceremony with the new president giving hand picked children food reminded me of a part of Blood Diamonds when I listened tot he book on cd. There are now ceremonies where child soldiers are disarmed and to hear it described it is a big farce used to give them positive media attention. For the disarming children are picked at random and told they are going to stop being soldiers, they are usually separated from their unit long before the ceremony to make sure nothing rash happens. During the ceremony the child soldiers are stripped of their military things, almost like a discharge. It is suppose to be happy to see but the Africans watching know it is staged and the children are normally confused and distraught that they are losing their rank and power, so it is only for the foreign media.