Most women will remember learning how to apply mascara when they were 14 years old, but for Grace Akallo, the age marked the year she learned how to assemble a gun as an abducted Ugandan child soldier.

Akallo, author of ‘Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children,’ told her story of survival and activism to an audience of more than 100 Tuesday night at Boston College.

When Akallo was 14 years old, the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army opposed to the Ugandan government, attacked her all-girls boarding school on Uganda’s National Independence Day, Akallo, who is now 28 years old, said.’

‘The night [the rebels] came was Independence Day, and that was when we had our independence taken away from us,’ she said.

Rebel child soldiers, most of whom were younger than Akallo and her classmates, led the girls outside at gunpoint, she said. Though one of her teachers convinced the rebels to release 109 of the girls, 30 of them were abducted – including Akallo.’

Akallo said she was trained as a soldier in Sudan, and assigned to a male commander or ‘husband,’ who sexually and physically abused her. In her quest for survival on the front line, she said she had no choice but to kill people in the crossfire.

Throughout her bleak time as a soldier, Akallo said her faith sustained her.

‘The one thing that helped me most was prayer, because I knew that nothing else could help me,’ she said.

After seven months as a soldier, Akallo’s rebel camp was attacked, and she escaped. She found other fleeing children, and they returned to Uganda together.’

Akallo re-enrolled in school and graduated in 2001. She attended Uganda Christian University before she transferred to Gordon College in Massachusetts on a full scholarship.

Since arriving in the United States, Akallo has spoken to Oprah Winfrey, and to members of Congress and Amnesty International, as well as high school and college students nationwide. After finishing her graduate degree at Clark University, Akallo said she hopes to return to Uganda to help free child soldiers.

About 25,000 Ugandan children were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army between 1980 and 2007, according to the Child Soldiers Global Report 2008, which is sponsored by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

‘My top priority is peace,’ she said. ‘Then, it’s to have the perpetrators brought to justice before a criminal court. Then, it is to give these children a future.’

Boston College junior Latoya Davis said although she had already read Akallo’s book, which was published last year, to hear her story in person was inspiring.

‘To hear from her own mouth that the story was true was very powerful,’ she said.’

Boston College senior Emma Racioppo said the talk put her own life in perspective, but she wishes she could help activists like Akallo change the world.

‘It makes you reconsider everything you take for granted here,’ she said. ‘But it also makes you frustrated, because it’s so hard for one student to make a difference.’

In spite of this frustration, Akallo said students should not feel hopeless about to taking on injustice.

‘You can do something by reading, working hard in class and volunteering, because that will make you become leaders who will truly make a difference,’ she said.