How Democrats Lost Men

During the civil war in Sierra Leone in 1999, I found myself in a jungle town called Kenema as locals got word that a rebel army was headed their way. The Revolutionary United Front, as the rebels called themselves, was infamous for mass rape, execution, and torture, and the people of Kenema were understandably terrified. I watched women pour into the streets and start screaming at the men to go out and defend them. Then they grabbed their children and took shelter as best they could. The men rounded up whatever weapons they could find—rusty shotguns and AKs, old pistols, a colonial-era saber—and rushed out of town to meet their fate. They managed to defeat the rebels, and an unspeakable tragedy was averted.