they pick out a child (at random, troublemaker, sick, weak, whatever)... and then after either drugging the f*ck outta all of them If there isn’t a lot of time, or more commonly keeping them on a 15 minute sleep/high adrenaline routine for a few days to bring on hallucinatory sleep-dep (Or both, depends on the region): kill that child very slowly, and very messily, all whilst blaming the other kids. Telling them that THEY were responsible for his death, that they were killing him, because they did not / were not ___________. (Whatever it is they’re trying to impart/instill at a gut level. Usually some form of loyalty/brotherhood but occasionally just fear/obedience, and sometimes other things.) It’s common to both smear the other kids with that kids blood as they’re dying, force them closer to the screams, or give them knives/machetes/hammers/rocks/broken bottles/whatever and make each of them strike a blow for ______ (failing to be brothers, for causing the death of someone who might have saved their life someday, for being useless/worthless/etc., for being such disappointments & breaking the heart of the man who chose THEM to be warriors but clearly made a mistake, etc.).
Afterwards? The PRIDE, love&affection, forgiveness, good drugs (happy/euphoria), food, sleep, clean clothes, etc. gets brought out.
It’s an incredibly effective group bonding technique.
Individually most of those kids already witnessed -or were forced to participate- in atrocities ((shooting family members, burning a building full of their family/neighbors, watching their own & others family be raped to death, given the choice between cutting off the limb of a person or shooting them, coming willingly or any of the above happening, but then forced to help with the next kid’s family if they didn’t want to go back to their own village, etc.))... but the single event all happening to the group, together? It being their “fault” it happened? And then flooded with love and affection, respect and good treatment afterwards? COUPLED with being half out of their minds without food/sleep & with massive trauma & altered minds <low whistle>
It’s so maaaaaaasively effective that it’s used by groups, with only minor variations, all. over. the. world.*
There’s some cyclical refreshing/reburning of those lessons, in fairly “minor” ways, that follows with most groups... as well as being involved with layer groups of new kids being brought in... but that first hard break BINDS those kids together to each other, and to whomever their handler is. **
It’s the MOST effective with kids, although there are some torture and interrogation styles that use the same elements over a longer time period, some gang initiations use pieces but in different ways (making it a choice of the initiate to choose first to kill someone outside of the gang and then choose to be hurt to be accepted / jumped in; nowhere near as effective as removing choice, killing your own, and doing it as a group led by a captor, but it serves a different need/purpose to create a weaker bond. SOME gangs go full out, but they’re rarely known as gangs for long, once they start bonding deeper/harder/faster to each other. Cartel inner circle, hit squads, paramilitary, & extremist groups evolve very quickly from what used to be gangs that have upped their induction rituals), and then -of course- most militaries use the seeeeeriously Mickey Mouse version to break down & build up over a waaaay longer timeframe for their own & save ‘take em break em make them yours’ for torture & interrogations. It would be stupid for most militaries to go all out, because just laying the groundwork for events that follow to fill in, is actually more effective with most adults to net the best results, even if those results aren’t a candle to the loyalty of a kid. ((Although decimation comes close-ish? Most modern militaries don’t use that, and it still relies on months & years of groundwork laid in to be even half as effective as what you can do to a kid in 72 hours; by ripping them away from their homes (“ideally” in as violent a way as possible), getting them in a state of altered consciousness, blaming them for/and involving them in the most brutal ways at hand of the death of one of their own, and then flooding them with love/affection/food/sleep/pride.))
* Not all child soldiers are inducted this way, in point of fact I don’t know of any who are that are home-grown/fighting with their families; that’s a totally different paradigm, & it varies one whole Helluva lot, depending on both the region & the individual families involved (and runs the gamut from brutal as f*ck to kindly rational). It’s a technique exclusive to abductee-child soldiers, as far as I know. But it really is world f*cking wide. Which always just blows my mind. Most things vary a lot depending on region / local culture / etc. That this is SO effective EVERY region has independently developed it? Speaks to a lot of things. Heartbreak included.
** It’s reeeeelatively rare (IE doesn’t happen with every group of kids, or even every 5 or 10 groups) but occasionally a child WON’T “come right” who has survived this process. Those kids aren’t usually killed, (at least not outright, although some are) but instead put in leadership roles. That’s a whole ‘nother bucket o’seriously f*cked up. And a harder road to walk. And, of course, some kids are too young to really understand or have this work on at all. That’s less rare. But kids that young (4ish, old enough to be swept up in a raid if they’re big for their age, and to follow instruction / stay with the group, but too young to really comprehend what’s going on) usually don’t survive long unless they’re kept in camp, and the process doesn’t matter anyway because this has become is their new normal, no aids needed. So whilst the most effective bonding technique I know of, it still has its limitations.
ETA... & Yeah. I know. Ray of freaking sunshine, me.
