AlterNet: Kids Learn that Killing Is Fun at the Army's Lethal New Theme Park

[marmar]

Kids Learn that Killing Is Fun at the Army's Lethal New Theme Park

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted December 19, 2008.

The Army's new recruitment tool lets high-tech video game centers desensitize, condition, train and even enlist America's youth.



The Army Experience Center, located in the Franklin Mills Mall just north of Philadelphia, bills itself as a "state-of-the-art educational facility that uses interactive simulations and online learning programs to educate visitors about the many careers, training and educational opportunities available in the Army."

Nonsense. The only thing they're teaching here is how to blow shit up. If it's state-of-the-art anything, it's state-of-the-art adolescent boys’ wet dreams.

"Too slow! Do it again!" yells the voice in my earphones as a new sequence of armed figures in camouflage pop up in front of me. I -- the player -- am attached to the foreshortened barrel of an M-16 -- and a little embarrassed by that. It's not my thing, really. And I wasn't expecting the game to involve having to tolerate some dickhead's personal opinion about my marksmanship.

But I didn't come here to get yelled at or to play games. I came because I was curious about the Army's latest marketing strategy. For $12 million, this place has been dressed to kill: 15,000 square feet (about three basketball courts) done up in brushed steel, glass and low-light glam. But what this place is really about is the bling: strings of networked Xbox 360 pods and individual gaming stations. And the crown jewels: a UH-60 Black Hawk, an AH-64 Apache and a Humvee. Simulators. And it's all entirely free.

"Potential recruits are afforded a unique opportunity to learn what it means to be the best-led, best-trained and best-equipped Army in the world by allowing them to virtually experience multiple aspects of the Army," says Pete Geren, Secretary of the Army. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/113079/kids_learn_that_killing_is_fun_at_the_army%27s_lethal_new_theme_park_/

[Mugweed]

1. Like that commercial for the Navy.

You see one guy starting up a small drone airplane and launching it from a moving auto, another guy piloting a small RC submarine with a camera attached through a minefield, from the safety of somewhere else. They make it appear these days that if you join the armed forces, the whole thing will be like a video game and you'll never actually be exposed to bullets, bombs, people who hate you because you're invading their country for no reason, etc. It's all just one long XBox session....yeah, just like that.

[Catch22Dem]

3. There are some jobs that are exactly like that

If a viewer is too stupid to realize that the jobs in those commercials represent a tiny sliver of the available jobs in the military, then they haven't done enough research yet.

I remember the Air Force commercials when I was a kid. It looked like "hey, join the Air Force and fly jets!" Well, I didn't join the Air Force when I was 18 thinking I was going to be a pilot. I loved my job though.

[peace13]

6. For sure.

My 42 year old sister is in the Air Force and she is on the ground in Balad, Iraq right now. Bet she wonders why she isn't in her hanger in the Carolina's. Go figure.

[and-justice-for-all]

2. Gag. the military needs its budget cut..dramatically!!

[lanlady]

4. I'm appalled

that my tax dollars are funding this high-tech killing field for kids.

[Catch22Dem]

5. I call bullshit on this article

First of all, it's just another video game for the people who play this thing. 18 year olds today have known video games from the time they can hold a controller. It's not desensitizing anyone, and it certainly isn't training or conditioning them as the author suggests. It also doesn't teach that killing is fun. Not any more than any other game they've ever played. To suggest otherwise is completely ridiculous and gives WAY too much credit to what amounts to little more than a mall marketing tool for the Army.

Here's the reality of the situation though; We have an all-volunteer military in this country. No one is being forced to join. They need to dress up the services in order to get recruits. Some people aren't that bright and don't do enough of their own research and they sign up for a stint in the military and hate it from day one. Other people, DO research the jobs and opportunities, and have wonderful careers in the military. It has always been that way. This toy at the mall is just another means of getting people to talk to the recruiter. In my day, they had chin-up bars at the state fair. You'd walk up, the Marines would challenge you, you'd be surrounded by your buddies and/or some girls and they'd egg you on. Eventually you'd end up talking to that recruiter and he'd tell you how great it was to be a Marine.

I spent 8 years in the Air Force, and I had some of the greatest and most memorable times of my life. I've VERY proud of what I did in the military. I've always been more liberal than many of my peers, but believe me when I tell you I found more like-minded people when I was serving in the military than I have at my entire company in the civilian world now. Some of us still believe in serving to defend, as it was intended.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

7. 8 yrs. in Air Force="greatest and most memorable times of MY life"

and the flip side of that coin is?
(caps in subject line mine)

[NoPasaran]

8. That place sounds AWESOME!

When I was kid, we had to amuse ourselves by throwing rocks.