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Ex-Child Soldier Recalls Ordeal, Vow to Friends

Ugandan student shares harrowing tale at event in Glencoe.

Amazed is the only way to describe how a group of more than 60 people, including many teenagers from Highland Park and Glencoe, felt when they heard the story of 23-year-old David Ocitti.

Ocitti's tale of survival and perservance after he was kidnapped by rebels unfolded Sunday at  synagogue in Glencoe. 

The Ugandan native is a semester away from graduating with a business degree from Gulu University in his homeland. But when he was 17, Ocitti witnessed the slaying of his father and saw his mother taken away by one of Africa's most notorious rebel groups.

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The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) had invaded the home to cause mayhem and recruit child soldiers. Ocitti recounted for the audience what happened after that.

Mia Fischbein is a  senior who helped organize the event as a member of Am Shalom Temple Youth (AShTY).  

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“It’s inspiring,” she said of Ocitti’s resurgent personality. “The fact anyone can go through that and still end up positive is inspirational.”

As a freshman at Highland Park, Fischbein joined the school’s chapter of Amnesty International and learned about Invisible Children, a San Diego-based organization dedicated to ending the use of child soldiers in Africa. That connection brought her into contact with the group and Ocitti. 

Taking a semester off from school, Ocitti is traveling with three young Americans in a van through Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan telling his story as part of Invisible Children’s roady program. The foursome is speaking to any interested group in an effort to spread awareness and raise money.

Part of the Invisible Children's efforts

The night that changed his life

As a 17-year-old, like Fischbein and many others in the audience, Ocitti was finishing his primary schooling and looking forward to continuing his education. He lived with his extended family of rice farmers in northern Uganda.

One terrifying night, everything changed. 

“My village was surrounded by the LRA. There was gunfire everywhere,” Ocitti recalled. “They took us all: my father, my mother and my brothers. They took the whole village.” 

Joseph Kony has led the insurgents since 1991, operating from bases in Sudan. His rebel group is known for kidnapping young boys as soldiers.

A gunman who was holding the Ocitti family captive looked directly at the teen and asked him what he valued most. 

“My father, my mother and my brothers,” Ocitti said. “They killed my father, took my mother away and said, ‘Now what do you value?’ I couldn’t say a word; I was so terrified.”

He was taken away with his brothers and other male teens from the village, doubting he would see his mother again. 

Not long into his captivity, Ocitti was given an AK-47 assault rifle and trained as a soldier. “We marched every day,” he said.

“If there was an attack, we would be the front lines so the leaders could get away,” Ocitti said about being a human shield. Fortunately, that never happened while he was a prisoner.

Ocitti’s military training was not classic, as the rebels instilled fear into their unwilling recruits.

“They made you feel helpless,” he said. “Every night they would kill one of your friends before your eyes.”

That is what happened to his brothers, Ocitti said. He made a pact with three of his friends that they would be the last child soldiers. 

Escaping captivity

After six months in captivity, Ocitti and his friends knew it was time to escape. They took off one night with their guns and began running as fast as they could. 

“We ran and ran. They [LRA rebels] fired at us. My friends were shot. I was the only one who survived," Ocitti said of their flight.

Noting that he never shot back: “I was too scared. I just ran. I threw my gun away.” 

Ocitti returned to his village but saw little there. He eventually found his mother in a displaced persons camp in northern Uganda.

“We hugged. We cried,” he said of the reunion.

Ocitti finished school and headed to the university, where he has a semester remaining to get his degree. He has not given much thought yet to a career.

“I don’t know,” Ocitti said about his life after college. “I’ll find a job.” 

Fischbein will take her social action agenda to the University of Minnesota, but has not ruled out taking a semester as an Invisible Children roady.

“I’m thinking about it,” said Fischbein, who has spent a night in the rain as part of Reserve, a program to show solidarity with the child soldiers of Uganda. 

“I was part of a group of 100 people in Grant Park. We had to stay there in the rain until we were rescued by a public figure,” Fischbein said.

“It was Oprah [Winfrey],” she added in naming her rescuer. 

An inspiring story

Ben Davis, a New Trier High School freshman from Glencoe, found Ocitti’s story upsetting. He left the AShTY event with a desire to make a difference.

“I don’t think anyone should go through this,” Davis said. “It shouldn’t happen, and we should do something about it.”

One of the things AShTY members did was write letters to members of Congress seeking funding for previously passed legislation directing the U.S. government to take action. 

Eli Kogan, a New Trier junior from Glencoe, was the last person at the writing station penning a letter to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL).

“Something has to be done and this [letter] is what I’m going to do,” he said. 

The call to action by Fischbein and AShTY adviser Adam Bellows was not only heard by high school students. Anna Fox, an eighth grader at Edgewood Middle School in Highland Park, was moved. 

“We can help. We have to help our fellow teenagers,” Fox said. “[Ocitti’s] story brought tears to my eyes. We can’t let this happen to people my age.”

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