For the record, I work with a young man who is in the reserves. He keeps talking about how he is being deployed and how excited he is. Lucky for him, for some reason, they never let him go. He is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and may be capable of enlisting, and surely incase of a national emergency he would be able to help out, but the Army recognizes his ineptitude and keeps him here.

You make a great point with your definition of the tool as a “game” merely because it is on a console and/or a pc. Does me playing a drag racing simulator where you can adjust engine output, wing angles, aerodynamics, etc., make me thing I could just go and be a drag racer? No, but it does give me more of an idea of what goes into it than if I were to chug away at “Need for Speed”. Using the simulator for drag racing helped me make the decission, “hey, this isn’t for me”. I believe that is the case for the Army as well.

Last summer when I was unemployed, one of the stops I made when I was looking for a job was at a recruiters office. They were very up front with me. They told me of jobs that were available at the time, but that those jobs could be filled in a day and there would be a whole different set available when I finally enlisted. We talked about incoming rank and pay scales, bonuses, deployment, the realities of war, and I even to a practice ASFAB. At the end of the day, the decission came down to two things: my 4 children were too young to leave to go active for 2 years, and, while I am not against the Army, I am against the gross misrepresentation that is this war, and I could not let myself be a part of it. I feel as if there was no lying, misleading or anything by the recruiters. I think it would have been interesting had there been a simulator for me to look at when I was there. I cant say it would have swayed my judgement, but it would have been inforemative nonetheless.

As an avid lifelong student of military history and someone who regrets not applying to West Point immediately after high school graduation, I’ve enjoyed this opportunity to think about one of the major questions concerning the subject of war: what is the totality of the human experience of war?

To use examples from the simulated scenarios present at the Philadelphia AEC:

Is it just riding in a hum-vee with your battle brothers?
Or is it also having that hum-vee rocked by the explosion of an I.E.D. and bearing witness to the horrible tragedy of friendly casualties?

Is it just crewing a black hawk and scanning the ground for hostiles while zipping along in the sky?
Or is it also having to haul the mutilated wounded and dead onboard while returning fire into a possibly densely populated urban environment?

It is just sitting behind giant control screens and data read-outs stationed off-shore or off-site and directing missile strikes and attack packages?
Or is it also the heavy burden of leadership knowing that there is a significant risk with any action that you take that there will be a human cost on both sides.

What about Wilfred Owen’s Army Experience in a war almost a century ago:

Is it the hard-fought glory of the American Marines’ victory at the Battle of Belleau Wood when the gunnery sergeant screamed, “Come on you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?!”
Or is it also British soldier Wilfred Owen’s personal experience of retreating from heavy artillery bombardment and gas attacks? Is the fourth verse of his poem part of the experience too:

“If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues”

Because if you can say that all of these things are part of the Army Experience too, then they should be included in the simulators which, as you claim, are meant to be realistic training tools for the possible recruit to play. It might make them less enjoyable or entertaining, but that’s beside the point: they’re representative of the army combat experience. Would I include those things into simulators for the already enlisted? Probably not. They need the simlulators to focus on the instructions of tactics, strategy, skills, and techniques. They’re not using them for the rest of the “experience”. They nobly LIVE the rest of the experience.

Do you know why they’re not playing Call of Duty at the AEC? Because it wasn’t developed to be instructional, but entertaining. It was developed to be “realistic” entertainment. How many times have you beaten a level in any of the Call of Duty installments by yourself without relying on your squadmates or support? Many a time. Do you know what would happen if the Army used Call of Duty to recruit young men and women? Amongst other things, we’d be living in a strange, bizarro, twilight zone world where the movie The Last Starfighter could be a documentary. We’d also have soldiers like me using tactics like “spray N’ pray, hoard the ammo, run n’ gun, etc.” and the Geneva documents would have to be up-dated to address the issue of tea-bagging. I’m kidding. But seriously. That’s ridiculous.

Did you really get what Wilfred Owen was saying?

The AEC isn’t glamorizing war, they’re just not relating to potential recruits the whole experience. That might otherwise not be so inexcusable, but it is, given the fact that they’re advertising it as being THE Army Experience. I’m not saying that before the AEC the recruiters sat down and told the recruit all about the ghastly horrors of war, of course they didn’t. But at least then it was an issue that was possibly implied, but mostly omitted. Otherwise, we’d have very few recruits. And, you’re right, that’s a real problem.

If you can readily admit to yourself that the fourth stanza of his poem, or an experience like it, is part of the average experience of a combat infantryman, then you’re saying you really wouldn’t have a hard time telling a thirteen year old kid playing at the AEC that, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”?

I would be all for the AEC if I thought that it was being used for new, already enlisted recruits to get a taste of what was to come. But if there are kids in the mall who instead of going to put coins in the arcade are going to play war games for free at the AEC and are not even within a year of enlistment age… well, that just seems messed up. The sergeant in the video you provided says that the simulators are the biggest attractions and that they are being “enjoyed”. They must not be completely realistic then, huh? Would children enjoy the reality of war or military experiences?

I would be more ok with the AEC if they just made the whole thing available only to 18+ or recently enlisted recruits.

I have visited the army recruitment and the marine corps office twice in the past three years to ask questions and gather information. If they had these simulators, it may have been what sealed it for me. Not because I was ready necessarily or because it was a priority for me, but because it would have played up to what I have always loved about the military and war of every era. I love tactics and strategy. I hold the virtues of honor, sacrifice, duty, and courage, above all else. Nevertheless, I think I would make a terrible soldier. I have authority issues. Maintaining discipline can be a struggle for me. The simulators wouldn’t have shown me or told me those things.

Regardless, and THIS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT I HAVE TO SAY, thank you to all the brave men and women who have served and continue to serve our country, both at home and overseas. You truly are paragons of virtues that are quickly becoming lost in our society and culture. I have the utmost respect for what you do and the causes to which you have dedicated your lives.

Sincerely, thank you.

Interesting article, Jeff.

You’re right. That wouldn’t just be naive, it would also be absurd.

“It’s the height of naivete to believe the world would be better without the incalculable service our armed forces perform…”

As impossible as an ideal as it may seem, is it difficult for you to believe that a world with LESS WAR would be a better place for all humanity?

People aren’t criticizing the Army. It’s comprised of our courageous sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and friends, who play a necessary and vital role in keeping our country, and our world, a safe place to live. People are criticizing militarism.

I’m assuming that part of the reason why you are so highly critical of the Islamic fundamentalist “world” is because you associate it with the militarism of those countries, such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Is it wrong then for Americans wary of militarism within our own country to exercise their rights and protest?

Or does that somehow make them seem “unpatriotic” to you?

Thomas Jefferson writes:
“Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one’s country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former, because real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent.”

The protesters aren’t protesting against the Army itself, but rather against this SPECIFIC instance of Army recruitment policy and method. Don’t conflate the two.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

END

(“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” translated from latin means “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”)