America's Army Games Cost $33 Million Over 10 Years

Responding to a Freedom Of Information Act request, the US government has revealed the operating costs of the America's Army game series over the past decade. The total bill comes to $32.8 million, with yearly costs varying from $1.3 million to $5.6 million. "While operating America's Army 3 does involve ongoing expenses, paying the game's original development team isn't one of them. Days after the game launched in June, representatives with the Army confirmed that ties were severed with the Emeryville, California-based team behind the project, and future development efforts were being consolidated at the America's Army program office at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. A decade after its initial foray into the world of gaming, the Army doesn't appear to be withdrawing from the industry anytime soon. In denying other aspects of the FOIA request, the Army stated 'disclosure of this information is likely to cause substantial harm to the Department of the Army's competitive position in the gaming industry.'"

Re:America's Air Force

[adamchou]

The airforce is hardly having difficulty with recruitment. In fact, they're so overwhelmed with requests that you can barely enlist for the airforce anymore. I enlisted in July and I went to MEPS 32 times after enlisting and everytime, the Airforce recruitment office in the LA MEPS (biggest in the nation) was closed. They're going to focus their developers working on top secret software and other related projects and thats exactly what they should be doing.

Re:Less than the cost of a single cruise missile.

[d3ac0n]

Mandatory target practice is one thing, but virtual instruction that actually plays no part in gameplay is a bit idiotic.

Just about every powerful member of the Democrat party, to be honest.

(Yes, I realize that I accidentally included an apostrophe where I should not have if I meant multiple politicians. It was a typo, move on.)

But if you want specific examples, former presidential candidate John Kerry is an excellent one. In 2008 he infamously said to a group of college kids:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

HERE [youtube.com] is the video of that one.

Another excellent example is John Murtha's recent slander of the Marines, wherein he accused marines of murdering civilians in an incident at Haditha, Iraq. (Incidentally, all of the Marines involved have been acquitted or had the charges summarily dropped.) John Murtha is now being sued by the Marines and their families for slander.

Those are just TWO High profile examples. Unless you start thinking "Oh, it's just a couple of stupid loudmouths" Understand that this attitude runs from top to bottom of the far left, which has taken control of the Democrat party. We have had attacks on off-duty soldiers, vandalism against recruiting stations, and many many not-so-subtle jabs against military members as "stupid" "dumb" "thugs" "killers" etc. It's endemic in the far left and (by extension) the Democrat Party power structure. They HATE the military, and it shows.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the education level of our Armed Forces:

– 49.2 percent of officers have advanced or professional degrees; 39.4 percent have master’s degrees, 8.5 percent have professional degrees and 1.3 percent have doctorate degrees.

– 22.8 percent of company grade officers have advanced degrees; 16.5 percent have master’s degrees, 5.9 percent have professional degrees and 0.3 percent have doctorate degrees.

– 85.4 percent of field grade officers have advanced degrees; 70.7 percent have master’s degrees, 12.1 percent have professional degrees and 2.5 percent have doctorate degrees.

– 99.9 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education; 73.3 percent have some semester hours toward a college degree; 16.2 percent have an associate’s degree or equivalent semester hours; 4.7 percent have a bachelor’s degree; 0.7 percent have a master’s degree and .01 percent have a professional or doctorate degree.”

that is from an internal military survey, which you can find HERE [af.mil].

If you want more detailed information, an overall survey was performed by the heritage Foundation and an article on it (along with nifty charts) can be found HERE [heritage.org].

The point is, our military is OVERWHELMINGLY Educated, Middle Class, and White. (although whites are, on a proportional basis, slightly underrepresented, with Pacific Islanders somewhat overrepresented.) While I don't have specific figures I can quote, My understanding is that America's military is among the (if not THE) best educated and highest class (economically) in the world. That's something I, for one, am very proud of.

I hope that answers your questions.

Re:The Army should not be making videogames...

[stewbacca]

If we can provide citizens with Universal Single Payer Health Care for $32.8 million over 10 years, I'd say you have a point. Something tells me that $32.8 million wouldn't last very long though.

As a 12-year vet myself, it is pretty clear to me, and the overwhelming majority of people who sign up, that our military is completely voluntary, so nobody is being sent "to their death".

Re:Less than the cost of a single cruise missile.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Let's apply a bit of research to that John Kerry quote, [mediamatters.org] turns out he just boffed a joke, the copy of his written remarks that was handed out to reporters before he made the speech had this sentence at that point: "I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

Something that the youtube sound-bite has conveniently edited out is the fact that he was clearly beating up on Bush at that point, to take his statement the way you have is to completely ignore the context and assume he just decided to make a random comment about the military in the middle of a totally unrelated discussion.

I can't really blame you for doing that, the republican party is so highly skilled at doing the faux outrage act, its no surprise millions of people are suckered in by it. However, I do blame you for citing Murtha - how does accusing someone of murder equate to thinking that they are dumb or poor? Since when do only dumb or poor people commit homicide? Sounds like you may be a classist. And, you didn't even get that one right either, Wuterich is still charged with negligent homicide.

So, in summary you have completely failed to support your claims that Murtha or Kerry have a "desire to paint the military as a bunch of dumb poor people."

Now, lets take on the general perception that poor and uneducated people end up in the military...

99.9 percent of the enlisted force have at least a high school education; 73.3 percent have some semester hours toward a college degree; 16.2 percent have an associate's degree or equivalent semester hours; 4.7 percent have a bachelor's degree; 0.7 percent have a master's degree and .01 percent have a professional or doctorate degree."

You just kicked the crap out of your premise with that one.

let's compare:

Bachelor's Degree:
enlisted force: 4.7%
us population: 16.7%

Master's Degree:
enlisted force: 0.7%
us population: 5.9%

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_009.asp [ed.gov]

And don't even try to point at the officers - a bachelor's is a requirement to be a commissioned officer, having a degree gives you options. This is about the military being the employer of last resort for a lot people. If that were not the case, we would not have seen the number of conduct waivers double over the last 5 years [armytimes.com] - the people with options have been going elsewhere.

Re:Less than the cost of a single cruise missile.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or found out they couldn't pay to keep going, found out about the usefulness of the gi bill and joined. I know a few of my friends from college did that. They are either graduated or almost done with school, though I graduated 6 years ago. Boy have all of them "grown" up since then.

Re:Less than the cost of a single cruise missile.

[times05]

Or it's a lot of high school kids who are in the process of getting their college degrees. Army pretty much pays for you to go to college while you are in. Civilian education is worth promotion points to advance in rank in all branches as well. Also count in those enlisted that finished their degrees, often end up becoming officers. Enlisted to officer is a nice pay increase.

Re:Less than the cost of a single cruise missile.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the statistics you posted for the enlisted forces:

73.3 percent have some semester hours toward a college degree
16.2 percent have an associate's degree or equivalent semester hours
4.7 percent have a bachelor's degree

I gotta say, reading that makes me think John Kerry might have been right after all. That's an awful lot of college kids that didn't finish college.

Most army training courses after BASIC training will earn you college credits. A friend of mine joined the Army right after high school. He had zero college credits. After 2 years in the army he had gone through BASIC and advanced training. Because of the advanced training he was considered to have completed the first year of college.

He has been in the army for 8(?) years now. Currently he has about 30 credit hours (or about 2 terms) shy of his Bachelors degree. I would guess that he would have that by now, but he has spent about half that time deployed in Iraq.