Loss of family:
Ishmael Beah, before the age of 12, was a normal African boy. He had normal friends and normal interests such as rap music. But when he was separated from his family, he was forced to seek company with others who were in a similar situation. After wandering around for months, the children he was with came across an army who was fighting the rebels, the group who killed their parents. The boys wanted to be a part of something, they wanted protection, people to look up to, a place where they would be accepted, but most of all, they wanted revenge, revenge on the people who murdered the ones they loved.
"Whenever [Ishmael] looked at rebels during raids, [he] got angrier, because they looked like the rebels who played cards in the ruins of the village where [he] had lost [his] family. So when the lieutenant gave orders, [he] shot as many as [he] could, but [he] didn't feel any better (Beah 122)."
Later, after rehabilitation, Beah realizes that "[he] joined the army to avenge the deaths of [his] family and to survive, but [he has] come to learn that if [he is] going to take revenge, in that process [he] will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end . . . (Beah 194)." Because of the war, Beah's anger towards the rebels increased dramatically. The acts of violence he had to commit intensified his hatred of the rebels and it wasn't until he was rescued by UNICEF that he was saved from his own hateful nature that was forced upon him.