Jimmie Briggs

Who is Jimmie Briggs?

Jimmie Briggs is an American freelance journalist and teacher. He was awarded the John Battlow award from Northwestern University for a story about the Gulf War's impact on children, which became a finalist for a National Magazine Award. He has also investigated the impact of war on children in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Congo, Uganda and Colombia. He has written for the New York Amsterdam News, The Village Voice, Emerge, Vibe, Life and The Crisis.

He is the author of "Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War", which is about children that have been forced to fight wars. Briggs has disputed the popular saying that the truth is the first casualty of war. He believes the first casualty of war is always the children. Young children are being used as soldiers, scouts, cooks and sexual servants in conflicts around the world. These conflicts are mostly third world countries where there is little or no enforcement of laws and the children are often fighting on both sides of the conflicts. The organization with the dubious distinction of having the youngest soldier, only five years old forced to fight with small arms is the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda led by Joseph Kony.