Iraq War Veterans Protest America's Army Title

Via GamePolitics, a story reported by the St. Lois Post-Dispatch of frustrated war veterans protesting America's Army . Roughly 100 veterans of the Iraq war marched near an elaborate demonstration of the military-funded game, outside of an expo center in Missouri. Their shouts of 'war is not a game' must have contrasted sharply with the elaborate simulator the Army had set up to publicize their (already very popular) FPS title.

Re:America's Army

[IndustrialComplex]

America's Army doesn't appear to have evil robots.

Query: Can a robot actually be classified as evil?

Re:AA vs. Real Violence

[Scrameustache]

I am not a pacifist

It still baffles me that anyone could take that stand.

It is unethical because it is a LIE.

[0p7imu5_P2im3]

It's unethical because it is a lie.

In this simulation (I had a chance to play it because I used to work where they designed it.), the players are veritably invincible. The only thing realistic about it is that they are ambushed by a terrorist force of surprising size and ferocity. IEDs are blowing up all over and no players get hurt or die in any way. Also, these HMVs that you are riding in are apparently made of duranium alloy and surrounded in a force field, because the HMVs were not even affected by nearly constant rocket fire.

It supports the idea that our Army is invincible and if you join it, you will be, too. That is why it is unethical.

I worked on America's Army

[freshmayka]

I worked for the America's Army team when they were located at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. I wanted to get some more game industry experience on my resume and it was the only local job of its nature. It was a cool bunch of people working on the game, your typical bunch of gamers and artists. The only major difference was that we were all working on a piece of major recruitment propaganda for the Pentagon.

You had these guys in military uniforms talking about how great it was that this game saves them hundreds of millions of dollars in recruitment costs. How it has gotten millions of downloads and been very successful in weeding out people who sign up for service without knowing what they are getting into. Instead you get guys like FPS Doug who might be thinking "hey, war is just like FPS, so why not sign up for the military and get paid to goto college!"

After two weeks I couldn't take it anymore. The job was great, the environment was great, the people were friendly, and the product was encouraging young Americans to sign their lives away and be sent off to Iraq. It bothered me too much so I staged my own little protest, I just walked out of the office and never went back. Not like I was crucial to the team, but I didn't want to have something on my resume which I completely morally objected to.

Re:AA vs. Real Violence

[vertinox]

I do think, though, that a game put out by the Army that touts its realism can shape the ideas of what combat is like in impressionable minds, so I definitely have an ethical problem with them using it as part of a recruiting effort with people who are just coming into adulthood.

One of the first thing the Nazi's did when they came to power was to ban book like "All Quiet on the Western Front" because it portrayed combat in a bad light. The German army was the first to come up with the concept training of having soldiers actually shoot silhouettes of men rather than bull eye's target (to be fair this was not a Nazi creation but something from WWI) in which the belief you could desensitize soldiers to actually shooting the enemy by having them practice on man like objects first so that it would be a recorded hand eye movement so they didn't have to think of the killing.

Speaking of which... There was a study done by the US military that during WWII that only 1/3 of GI's actually shot at the enemy when given the choice. From what I've mostly read that most combat casualties on all sides (barring accidents, exposure to the elements, and starvation) in the war were via artillery, machine guns, or air attacks so it could that all sides simply had to use indirect fire to inflict casualties most of the time.

Given the nature of the game, it could be that AA would help in dehumanizing the enemy if the other side is seen as a video game opponent.

Re:America's Army

[Original Replica]

If they start releasing games that have the same controls and abilities of UAVs and armed ground robots like Talon Swords, think of what they will have. Kids start training in elementary school, by the time they turn 16 they could be ridiculously skilled with the use of remote operated war machines. Heck, the upgrades for the machines could well come from the feed back from the kids playing the game. It could be very like the end of "Ender's Game" real battles could be remotely won by kids thinking of it as playing a tournament.

http://www.foster-miller.com/lemming.htm [foster-miller.com] http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=12 2 [af.mil]

Meandering thoughts.

[headkase]

This is kind of an aside; just recollecting what's been floating though my mind for the last few days. It seems to me that the leadership of the United States of America is losing it's way. As a frightening parallel in history, in Germany the Nazis rose to power by gradually placing more and more control into the hands of selected capitalists. We called it Fascism then. The same can be seen in the USA today, war profiteering is being funneled into the wealth of those who made the decision to war in the first place! An old-boys network such as this sadly is a fact of life but what strengthens the parallel between the Nazis and the current USA is that the leadership is also paying less heed to the wishes of the people they claim to represent. I hope that those who are ignorant of history don't drag the rest of us through it. Again.
If you read a book called Earth by David Brin, he describes his vision of the near future as basically including a war where the bankers and anyone on their records are shot - cleansing the parasitism from societies fabric.
What do you think? Because in the age of Information you can make a difference!

Re:Anecdotal Evidence isn't the best.

[coaxial]

The interesting thing is, that my experience with the Greatest Generation with regards to the Iraq War would be one of extreme suspect. They've seen real war -- a war of national survival, and they've seen the actions and heard the arguments from this adminstration and their backers and they're disturbed by it.

Make no mistake that there is a war on, but you're right to say that the country is not "at war." A country can not be on a war footing when only 1% (if that) of the population is fighting and when there's no sacrifice on the homefront.