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In order to better understand the issues and psychic readjustments occurring in children having participated in war, the principal author spent three months in a rehabilitation center for child soldiers in Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The analyses, based on 78 interviews carried out with 22 children in a process of participant observation, show the consequences of two important identity crises: that of adhesion to an army constructed on denial and identification with the aggressor, and that of demobilization, which requires a readjustment of these identifications. During their military experience, these children had to cut themselves off from their past and their own identity by idealizing and identifying themselves in their military role. This process seems to have allowed the children to “absent themselves” or deny the anxiety-provoking experiences and thus avoid trauma. During demobilization, the soldier identity fades away and is gradually replaced by a massive new cathexis of their past lives.