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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
An anti-war activist that posts the names of dead soldiers in the chat during America's Army games, I wish I had thought of it myself. I am an on-line gamer and although I have no passion for America's Army (yes I've played it), I do like other first person shooters (HL2 + episode(s), Quake 4, etc). I don't get a great deal of time to play but that's beside the point. What better place to list the names of America's fallen than in the Army's internet recruitment tool? It's difficult for me to imagine anyone joining the Armed forces after playing it, it's the same as any other on-line team game thus the complaints of the day in, day out following of gamers who are apparently annoyed when reality encroaches upon recreational "killing/fragging". There is a war going on and ironically there is the slimmest chance that this war could potentially lead to the drafting of so many enthusiastic virtual killers depending on where the political climate is headed. I like to think that that's nearly impossible.. Any public outcry against the war is warranted, inconvenient or not. This war has been created from lies from the beginning, why shouldn't the truth be thus conjugal?
You make a good point here about scale and context. What the Army is doing with this game is wretched enough that I can support your efforts to subvert it, to make players notice that this is not an ordinary video game, and of course to make them think about the war itself. It's not the same thing as a general opposition to video game violence, which was the implication of some of the earlier letters by gamers who suggested that you just don't understand gaming.
I wonder what to make of the gamers playing America's Army. Some surely are affected by the propagandistic elements of the game, but if the letters here are any indication, there seems to be a substantial number of players who ignore that element. One could think of them as also subverting the Army's intent by taking advantage of a free FPS and disregarding its political meaning. I'm very curious how many players would fall in that catgory.
I agree that the Vietnam sims are especially creepy, and I was horrified by JFK assassination shooter that came out a year or two ago. The perspective switch (US soldier vs terrorist) in AA is fascinating, I agree.
Also on the question of games and society, I'm very interested in issues of gender. Is a character like Lara Croft empowering for female gamers? Or does she represent the worst of male gamer fantasies? As a woman, I vote for the former, yet I recognize that may not be the case for all gamers. But that's a debate for another forum.
CPTMitch, you strain mightily to come off as a rational, intelligent and circumspect individual, but on evidence of your words I find you to be yet another little boy (no matter your actual age) who loves playing with guns. You write: "I think he should join the military, or encourage others who think as he does to join as well. So that when the harsh decisions need to be made on the ground, there are people who will maintain the dignity of our nation." I see you have not as yet grasped the absolute INdignity of war. You seem to think those ‘harsh decisions’ were inevitable, rather than the entirely synthetic results of very BAD decisions made by the old men who so blithely risk (and waste) the lives of people as far from their social and family circles as possible.
You write: “I was sent back to the USA for medical reasons. They were going to send me all the way home. Although there was a risk, I went back to Iraq. This time it was my choice.” You write this in the crypto-macho terseness of tone appropriate to the modern action hero, of course. We all know that movie. That just-doing-my-duty modesty that we’re supposed to admire...respect...feel gratitude towards, yes? But guess what? I see right through your adolescent foolishness.
Why on earth would any well-formed, productive and intelligent human being whose town or city was not being invaded by a horde of armed marauders want to sign up as cannon-fodder in this or any ridiculous, impetuous blood bath? You seem to believe that you're behaving honorably and serving your country when in fact you are a dupe, sir, and not nearly as intelligent as you seem to take yourself to be. If you ARE intelligent, it’s in the manner of a fully programmable robot. Are you programmed to think that you and all those poor kids we call ‘soldiers’ (many of whom are soon to be mangled corpses) are defending someone, or something, or some…principle? Or are you simply not very good at critical thinking? Astonishing that it hasn’t hit you yet that what you’re doing is/was nothing more noble than serving to further an agenda the spoils from which, if there are to be spoils, will be shared neither by you nor any of your kin nor the kin of all the needless dead this conflict is responsible for. Enough dead to populate a good-sized town in the Midwest and for what? The ‘liberation’ of Iraq? Believe me, those tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians would say ‘no thanks’ if they could.
CPTMitch, the world would be a better place if young men like you would cease to be so goddamn gullible...or so enamored with playing soldier. Women and children the world over would be much better off if you confined your activities to the playing of violent video games and allowed truly responsible, honorable and heroic people to go about the relatively constructive business of LIVING. Sir.
The sketchiest knowledge of human psychology indicates that your 'protest' won't dissuade a single hawkish, trigger-happy young man or woman from joining the military if they are so inclined. I certainly hope you're merely naive, and not a cynical po-mo PR careerist in Pollyanna's clothing.
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