BEYOND SANITY

In The Beginning
Chapter 1
IT WAS the beginning of a new adventure and I thought it could not come to this. For many years the war created conditions that I thought could end as quickily as it had begun. It just started as a rumor and then it proceeded to develop and became huge.

The last we checked, what we thought would just come and sweep over us, had come to stay. And since the day in December 1989, the dogs of war turned our lives upside down. And from there war, the real one became the daily dose of thousands of us.

The war created several monsters: they were called 'freedom fighters' and with their weapons of power, life itself lost its value. Young men and women were trained and given weapons that because of them they could command authority and respect from their elders, and seniors. Families were torn asunder as the young men and women in their new roles as defenders of our freedom dictated how we should live.

The soldiers, yes, those who had been trained for many years to defend the nation and protect the people could not do it. For majority, they were insterested in staying alive. But they were wrong. Their enemies did not forgive those who, for their personal reasons, decided to throw down their weapons. They were, many of them, marched on to their doom.

As the war progressed and the butchers from all the various factions learned the effective means of killing other Liberians, the game took a different turn. From the national army to the rebels, civilians were their primary targets. And the price for the war was devastating in its nature!

And even the house of God was no longer safe.
The local communities were where thousands had sought refuge were places waiting to be invaded and in many instances displaced Liberians were slaughtered in their bed.
From the Lutheran Church to the United Nations' Compound on to the Duport Road community--all in Monrovia--the dogs of war went in their furor, mowing their fellow human beings down.

It was a tragedy of a serious proportion, and many of the survivors often asked, but to no one in particular: What kind of war is this?