Below are excerpts from the book. I have selected several pages from each chapter, for you the reader. As you will find when you buy the book, the selections were made randomly and not in any particular order. My hope is that you will find these excerpts educationally interesting and emotionally captivating.

Please enjoy!

PART I

THE YEARS OF INNOCENCE

CHAPTER 1

It is July 26, 2006, seven months after the inauguration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; the first modern-day president of Liberia to be elected during a time of true peace. Everyone hopes that she can bring order to a political organization created in the mid-1990s after more than 7 years of civil wars and political corruption in this tiny West African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for freed American slaves

I was born in Liberia and raised during those days of civil wars and political coups and now I am returning home, but I must register as a refugee. I am among the thousands of Liberians driven out of our country because of the wars, and now returning under a United Nations repatriation program.

But I no longer have parents here. Rebels killed my father and government forces of former President Samuel Doe killed my mother. I know because I watched them murder her. Oh how this Mrs. Sirleaf reminds me of Mom. Our new president once served as finance minister under William Tolbert, whom Mom used to say was the best president we ever had. But Tolbert, like my Mom and Dad, was killed by evil forces that took control of our country for a while.

I remember when I still had parents before those evil forces touched my life…

…. I awoke to the sound of gunfire from the direction of Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. I could not recall falling asleep the night before; or who took me upstairs to my bed. Like a lot of other six-year-olds on that November day in 1985, all I could remember from the night before was lying in my father’s rocking chair, watching television.
“Pop, pop, pop, pep, pep, pep” pounded the sounds outside the bedroom windows at our home in Paynesville City. They reminded me of my favorite television show, “Combat” broadcast on ELTV every Thursday night. Since Monrovia had only one television station, everyone saw the same programs; and when the kids went to school the next day, they all talked about the same shows from the night before.

I liked recalling when Combat’s the main character Sergeant Saunders shot and killed the bad German soldiers who always seemed to mess up when they tried to ambush the American soldiers. But, it would send goose bumps of fear up my spine when an American soldier got killed.

I hated the sound of guns. When I finally realized that the sounds outside were real guns that kill and destroy and not just sound effects in our television, true fear ripped my gut. As the outside sounds grew louder and closer, my only thought was to run from our bedroom into our parents’ bedroom for safety. I left my older brother David sleeping in his bed and, like a lamb looking for its mother; I pushed open our parents’ bedroom door without knocking.

My father was in the bathroom already preparing for work. He owned a large rubber plantation in Bong County and three diamond mines, worked by convicted prisoners under some kind of special arrangement he had with the government. We never know what the arrangement was but it must have paid well because we had one of the biggest houses in Paynesville City, on the outskirts of Monrovia. The house had six bedrooms, five bathrooms, two entertainment rooms, an apartment for our house watchman and gold decorations on our front porch that shined so brightly some of our neighbors in much smaller houses used to complain.

We never knew exactly what relationship Dad had with the government, but we know he was important enough to be taken prisoner by a rebel army that took over the government in 1980 when I was an infant.

With his shower water running, Dad could not hear me, so I tugged at Mom, who was still in bed. “There is a lot of explosion; I’m afraid to go in the bathroom alone, Mom,” I said and managed to get her to sit up in bed and open here eyes.

“Come on, hurry up. Go into your bathroom, and make sure to start getting ready for school,” she ordered. Since Mom and Dad were both up, while David was sleeping like a moth in a cocoon, I felt safe enough to go to my bathroom alone. I started washing my face when I heard Mom tell Dad, “Fred, something is happening again. I think there is a problem in Monrovia. Liberia is going to come under fire again.” Dad retorted, “Something is always happening in Monrovia, sweetheart.”

Dad rarely took things overly serious, especially when Mom considered them important. This was another situation like that, I decided while watching them. Dad stepped out of the bathroom and reached to turn on the radio atop the nightstand next to their bed, but the only sounds were static grinding and squeak. He then picked up the phone, but got no dial tone so he put it back on the cradle. He cursed, “Damn, I can’t get through to Tom.” That was his brother who lived in Monrovia a half a mile from the Executive Mansion where our President Doe lived.

.
Finally, the radio static stopped and a clear voice could be heard while the national anthem played in the background: “All Hail, Liberia! Hail, ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens, we the men and women of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the NPFL, have taken over from the tribally run government of the National Democratic Party of Liberia.”

Mom knew what was going on, she quickly told me to get David and Olivia from their rooms. By the time I had brought them from their rooms’ to our parents’ room, Mom was crying. Dad told us what he heard from the radio announcer: armed men had overthrown government officials and that President Samuel K. Doe is in hiding.

CHAPTER 2

 

I was still sitting at the upstairs living room window at noontime when I saw the soldiers that took Dad away that morning come driving towards our yard. “David, they’re coming back,” I yelled out to my brother out in the yard. He ran back into the house, forgetting to close the front door behind him.

Knowing how fearful David was, I ran downstairs to meet him. Soldiers had followed him inside and the neighbors who had gathered around our fence to watch what was happening ran away in different directions. When I saw the soldiers carrying guns and looks of fear, I ran to the downstairs living room to join Mom, Olivia and David. “Raymond, you better behave yourself, David, Olivia, you all come here,” Mom said. “You all know the situation, lets do whatever they say. I don’t want anything to happen to you kids,” she said.

I thought that Mom lost her mind to fear. Why should we cooperate with the strange men who nearly killed our father few hours ago? I clenched my hands into fists and took a seat on the stool next to Dad’s small bar.

We all gathered in the downstairs dining room, waiting for the soldiers to emerge from the doorway. The first soldier that I saw was the nasty looking one who had earlier hit Mom during the arrest. “They are in here, Chief,” he told his commander. I could feel blood swelling in my temples and sweat on the back of my neck.

“Madam, I’m very sorry for what happened here few hours ago, and I promise you that it will not be repeated,” he said as he made his way toward us.

“What are you people doing here? What is it you want from us,” Mom asked the commander of the bandit soldiers.

“We’re here to protect you and the kids and to make sure that nobody loots your home,” the commander said like a soldier responding to a superior’s orders. The leader of this group of renegades was not at all attractive—aged about 48 with an average height of fire foot ten inches and a chunky 180 pounds.. He was dark in complexion and his arms were ashy and cried for moisturizing lotion.

“We do not need your protection, just leave as you came. We’re all okay and will be just fine by the help of God,” Mom told the commander in a firm voice.

“It is just an order that we’re carrying out, Mrs. Morris,” he asserted. “I know just how you feel about the whole incident, it was all a misfortune, I’m very sorry,”

Mom looked at him for a while and didn’t talk again as the commander sat on the stool by the bar. By this time, all of his men were now in the living room, surveying the place as though they were looking for something that they had lost.

One of the men went over to the bar and started opening one of the bottles of wine that Dad usually served his important guests. As he unscrewed the cap, I yelled out. “Leave my dad’s wine alone!” Everybody in the dining room turned and looked at me as if I was crazy. The embarrassed and hungry looking soldier, who didn’t seem to know what to do next, began putting the cap back on the bottle,

I jumped to my feet and ran to him, grabbed the bottle, screwed the cap back on it and put it back where Dad usually kept it. I looked hard at him and went back to my seat.

“Don’t do that, Raymond. You don’t do that to strangers. Come back here,” Mom said.
“Leave the kid alone. He’s right in his action,” the rebel commander said in a voice that sounded like a rolling thunder on a windy, rainy night. “Soldiers, I told you all to behave yourselves when we come here. We’re in other people’s home,” the man told the younger soldier.

“I’m sorry, boss, I’m very sorry,” the young soldier quickly responded. There was a minute of silence.

“Do you have anything here for me and my men to eat?” the commander finally interjected. Mom defiantly responded, “I haven’t cooked any food for my children yet. Who is responsible for feeding you and your men? Me. I don’t think so. I thought you people now run the government,”

“Are you not giving us something to eat, or do you want us to take it by force?” the rebel commander asked as he stood up. Mom refused to back down, saying:” I can’t tell you what to do, sir. You’re the one now who decides how we live our lives,” Olivia and David trembled with fear.
“Can you please give me some water to drink?” one of the soldiers asked David as he rose from his seat. David hurriedly went into the kitchen and got the water. From the look on his face, I could tell that my brother was very afraid and was perhaps on the verge of soiling his pants. My sister was also shaking with fear as I watched her stand by the window with one of the soldiers at her side.

“Excuse me, ma’am, can you please give us something to cook? We’re really hungry,” one of the soldiers said to Mom as he got out of his seat.

“If you can cook, you may go in the kitchen and get something to cook, I have everything you may need to cook in there,” Mom replied as she pointed in the direction of the kitchen. After a while, the frail-looking soldier made his way towards the kitchen without getting an approval from his commanding officer. I could tell that the soldiers were really hungry from the looks on their faces. One of them looked haggard and sick, as he kept scratching his crotch. When I walked past, I could smell the funky odor of his body.

After a while, Mom went upstairs to do some cleaning. I sat there in the dining room, watching the soldiers’ every move as they took over our house. I could feel the commander’s eyes, but I didn’t turn around to make eye contact with him. I watched one of the soldiers as he looked at our family pictures on the wall, nodding as if he was watching things on display at a museum. When he reached the section of the wall where Dad’s credentials hung, he sighed and said, “This man is very smart.”

CHAPTER 3

It was not too long before the angry soldier and self-proclaimed commander who had been harassing Mom came running out of the bedroom like he was being chased by a dog.

“What’s going on… would somebody please tell me what the hell is going out here,” he asked as he buttoned up his camouflage shirt and trouser.

The moment that he walked out the door, I knew that something had gone wrong in that bedroom, that he had hurt Mom. As he made his way to the radio, he kept staring into everyone’s eyes as if he were bragging.

My body shook with anger as I watched him approach the radio. I only wished that I had the strength to make them all pay for what they had done to us. I couldn’t help thinking that he might have killed Mom in that room. I ran into the room to see if everything was fine with Mom, whether she was doing okay.

When I opened the bedroom door, she was still lying on her back on the bed and crying.
“Are you okay, Mom? Did he hurt you” I asked as I craw on the huge bed to lying down beside Mom. “Everything is fine, Raymond, everything is okay,” she replied, her hair tousled and dress ripped down the front. I knew she was lying

“Don’t cry, Mom, Dad is going to get them,” I said, as I reached up to fix her hair. “I’m going to get them one of these days. I’ll make sure they pay for what they have done to us,”

The President returned to the radio news to announce that he is no in hiding and that order is being restored. “I think Dad will soon be home,” I told Mom hopefully.

When I came back into the living room, the president’s voice was still blaring from the radio and the soldiers listened intently. After the president’s announcement, the soldiers didn’t seem to know what they should now do.

“I don’t believe that nonsense,” the self-proclaimed commander said as he paced back and forth in the living room. “This can’t be true. What are we going to do, guys?”

“Let’s go back to the base,” one soldier suggested.
“Do you know what the barracks looks like right now, with this announcement,” the soldier in charge scratched his head. “Damned, we are fucked! I can’t believe this!”
“If we do go to the barracks, what are we going to do with the commander’s body,” another soldier asked.

“Let’s just get going before it gets too late,” said the new young commander as he jumped to his feet like a general in a war movie calling his men for battle. It was not too long before the group of men started running downstairs.
“Let’s move, let’s go. Hurry, hurry up, men,” the young commander ordered as the group ran like a pack of dogs. I ran to Mom “They’re going! They’re leaving Mom,” I said, as I burst into the bedroom. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“Are they really leaving?” Mom asked as she walked toward me.
“Yes, they leaving! The commander said they were returning to the soldiers’ barracks in Monrovia,” I replied.

I told what I had just witnessed and she ran to the living room to see if it were true. Olivia and David still stood in the living room, listening to the radio. “Did they leave for real,” Mom asked David and Olivia as she walked back and forth in the living room.

“I think that they’re still downstairs trying to move their commander’s body, I can see them, moving something down there, do you think the man on the radio was really Samuel K. Doe?” Mom asked as she sat on the couch. “Yes, yes, it’s him, I could tell from his voice,” David answered.

“We all sat upstairs, listening to the radio and at the same time listening to hear if the soldiers had left the yard. But the more we sat and listened, the longer it seemed to take them to leave.

I walked downstairs to get water and to see what was a happened. In the dining room three soldiers were dragging big green sack toward the door. It must have been the commander’s body because blood was smeared on the soldiers’ shirts and on the dining room’s walls and ceiling.

I felt sad about the green object lying on the floor. I got the feeling that their commander was a good man and from the way he talked with me, I figured he must have a son my age. Now what was the soldier who killed him going to tell the commander’s wife and his children, I thought. “Maybe they’re planning to cover up the murder and say that he shot himself in our house,” I thought. It was not too long before one of the soldiers got me out of my thoughts.

Tell your mom to come down here. “We need some help,” the soldier commanded.

I hurried upstairs and told Mom what the soldier wanted. She hesitated and I reassured her that there was nothing to be afraid of, that everything was going to be all right, and that I would protect her. She smiled and said, “Remember, Raymond, you’re still a little kid. You’re not going to be able to fight these people.”

Step by step, I led the way, while Mom, Olivia, and David slowly walked behind me in a straight line, just like in a horror movie where the scared majorities walk in the path of the brave hero. But to me, they looked like a military marching band in parade.

Our arrival startled the soldiers. “What is going on, with you people,” one asked.” Why are you people creeping on us,” chimed in the new commander.

By now the dead commander’s body had disappeared; only the pool of blood that he’d lain in remained.

“Mrs. Morris, it is good that you came down here,” the educated looking soldier said.
“On behalf of my commander, I want to apologize for the unfortunate incident that took place here today,” he continued. “Especially for the mess that my commander has made down here in your living room,” he said while stopping to find his words.

“Don’t say that, it was an accident,” the commander quickly corrected the soldier.