The biggest difference between the army and the rebel groups is that the army is paid and legitimized by the government of a country. Rebel groups are groups that traditionally fight against the legitimate government of the day. Ismael and the boys, in the novel "A Long Way Gone", are able to differentiate between the two groups because Ismael was conscripted into the Sierra Leone army as a child soldier so he knew what the government soldiers looked like as opposed to the rebel soldiers.
