Memoirs of a Reluctant Servant

As they told their stories their voices rose and ebbed in a crescendo of confessionary fervor. They developed a rhythmic syncopation to their delivery. Their interruptions had stopped but each young man was obviously eager to get his chance to speak. I asked our friend in the Oakland A’s hat about his name, Little General. He said, “My man we had guns, drugs, sex and death all before we turned sixteen. The first time I killed somebody one of my officers said I carried my rifle like a ‘Little General’ and the name stuck. But for true we were ALL Little Generals.” Throughout the civil conflicts that plagued Liberia the children, some as young as eight, were seen as an expendable commodity. The now deposed president Charles Taylor had used thousands of children during his invasion of Liberia in 1989 and again in its defense as rebels closed in around him in 2003. Sadly the use of child soldiers wasn’t relegated only to Taylor’s army. Rebel factions that roamed the hills and grasslands of Liberia were inundated with child soldiers. Liberia had become a killing field and children were doing the killing. Some of those child soldiers now stood directly in front of me filthy and forlorn. Ahead of them lay hopeless lives of begging to survive with incomplete bodies. It made me wonder if their survival had been a blessing or curse. I had come to Liberia to work with children who were orphaned or displaced because of war. I thought I was prepared for what I would meet here. Yet, when everywhere I turned I met people eager to share their horrific stories, I realized nothing could have prepared me for this. After spending almost an hour with the five men I told them I needed to excuse myself and enter the grocery store. Just two months in country and any sense of innocence that had been left in me had evaporated in the buttermilk thick air of Monrovia. I was exhausted by their testimony. Before leaving I turned to the one who had first engaged me. I asked Double D about his name and he shrugged and said it stood for Death and Destruction. He hadn’t spoken much and I asked him if he had anything he wanted to say. His nimble fingers played nervously with the tenuously attached number 3 on his jersey. He shrugged and said, “What is there to tell? We did bad, bad things, but we were young-o. We had cocaine and heroin running through our bodies and we had guns. We snort plenty brown-brown.” I knew this to be a mixture of cocaine and gun powder. “That is a potent mixture is it not my good friend?” It was more a statement than a question. He looked up at the sky and took a deep breath then continued, “We all killed people for true; we die too in such a way, you getting me? If we were lucky we would have had our heads blown off,” he said pointing an index finger at his temple, “and not our legs. The dead are back in the soil of Liberia but they the lucky ones. No boogie-man come for them during sleep. They don’t see the demons-o and they don’t hobble around begging for money. The dead laugh at us.” Then he turned from interviewee to interviewer, “So, my good friend, what are YOU doing here in Liberia?” When I told them I was volunteering at a Catholic mission not far from Monrovia the men looked at me with surprise. Tough Trigger Master laughed and said, “Hey, Pa! You mean to tell me you came from the United States to work in Liberia for true?” I told them I had actually come from Honduras to work in Liberia, but they had the general idea. Then Tough Trigger Master laughed again and said, “My good friend, you’re more messed up in the head than we are.” Once again he had all of us laughing. It was a good time to make my exit. I gave each of the guys a hug and a Liberian handshake, where you snap the middle fingers with the person you are greeting. I bought each of them a cold bottle of mango juice and gave each of them one U.S. dollar. As they went their separate ways Double D turned and handed me back the dollar saying, “Use it for your kids so they don’t wind up like us.” Then he winked and said, “But I am keeping the mango juice my good friend; it’s hot as hell out here.”