The Army Experience Center

Comments

Interesting piece. More interesting is Major Dillard's final comment, "I think they are terrified it will work."... Yes, we are terrified that the use of violent video games by agents associated with our Federal Government will help to desensitize more children to violence and the use of violence to resolve conflicts. We are terrified that those same children will grow up never criticaly analyzing their military and see their "enemy" as Middle Easterners who should be controlled and killed by that military. We are terrified that Major Dillard and his team believe that there is nothing wrong with the US government using violent games to recruit youth the same way Joe Camel was used to sell cigarrettes to children. This is not a benevolent or more authentic way to recruit and those who endorse violent video games being used to recruit our youth don't fully understand the magnitude of such a thing.

I think the interview with the very young kids who said that the video games show you what war is like and what being in the arm is like is truly disturbing. It shows that the kids cannot tell the difference between the reality of war and the video game. There is also an interview with an older kid who says the video games weren't enough so he signed up to join. This type of systematic recruiting is really disgusting. It's an endangerment to child welfare.

All that's missing is the reality of death, the suffering civilians and soldiers, and returning home with PTSD. Video games work because it is deceitful and misrepresents what war is really like. 13 million dolllars could have provided better schools, health care, and job training to really serve your country without killing others. The fact that 14 year olds are allowed to be preyed on by recruiters is obscene.

My tax dollars are supporting a program that encourages 13 year-olds to have a good time and laugh and carry on while shooting simulated weapons and shouting "Die"?

Is that what I just saw?

As a retired history teacher and as a Veteran for Peace, I was present during the protest at the AEC on Sept. 12th. All I can say is how appalled I am at this display of simulated warfare which serves to entice 13 and 14-year olds to view violence as just a game. In my opinion, this AEC is an obscene use of my tax money, and it constitutes a near criminal activity on the part of the Army in attempting to influence juveniles to think of "war as a game." Veterans for Peace say "Shut It Down!"

Republicans were appalled that Obama wanted to urge kids to stay in school and study harder. Maybe this is the reason.

This is what they have planned for all Americans once all the jobs are gone to slave labor Americans can forget about school. Kids will just be indoctrinated into the Military to fight and kill populations wherever the Corporate Gods feel the need.

Bring on the anti war protests...

Oh please, folks, military service isn't fun, and that's made immediately apparent when you start the enlistment process (at MEPS). Anyone who had magically been laboring under the delusion that it's anything like a game (although in a sense it is like a game, a really unfair one...) and doesn't have the kind of motivation necessary would certainly wash out long before they actually reached basic training.

For what it's worth, 'America's Army' is one of the most incredibly frustrating games ever; it's almost unplayable. Your character is ungainly, your weapons malfunction frequently. People play it like other games rather than working as a team which means no one ever reaches the objectives. Aside from that though it's actually a pretty useful small-arms reference.

HIRE mejicaNOS AND LATINOS. hell outsource the event horizon to those that can not see why they fight; and fight they to a nation whose sells war, deceit and poverty under the same coat. the FLAG that was once fought for and died under has now no more color- pigments are expensive. . .

Isn't there a 18+ rating on most of those games?

I'm mildly surprised to see frontline cover the center from the same angle I've heard from existing news coverage. Video games make the center look pretty. They have little to do with the actual experience of enlistment.

The xboxes and computers are not as packed as it looks in the video. I used the computer to read a New Yorker article by George Packer (but on Florida, not Iraq). Once, I think while we were actually doing push-ups and sit-ups, there was a guy on an xbox obviously well over the weight and body fat standards. He didn't look like he was there to talk to a recruiter about an Army career.

This video notes that the recruiters are told just talk and not make a hard sell. They are pretty open with answering questions. Also, there are maybe a dozen or more recruiters, along with staff who have served. I have a friend who joined the at one of the recruiting centers that got shut down. It's helpful to be able to talk to more than just a single person as in the old centers. These are differences from normal recruiting centers that are the most significant.

I do think there could have been more thought put into the center. For one, there should be a better response to the "war is a video game" perception. (Perhaps there was but it was cut.) Another might be making the place a deeper source of information about the Army. Maybe an exercise area, a realistic M-16 simulator, more videos about the different phases and aspects of Army life that could go onto a more detailed website. (There is actually a more in-depth preparation program throughout the Army, part of it on www.futuresoldiers.com, than what existed a few years ago; completing the program allows promotion on starting.) These are things that might be assumed to cut foot traffic, but it would have a real impact the people more serious about joining, regardless of the games. But the center is already aiming to be unconventional, and it might as well try take real risks that represent a more substantive change than what has been the focus of most press coverage.

The main problem with anything like this is probably money. Recruiters seem busy in this poor economy. The center could have cut back on the Herman Miller Aerons.

I'm retired from active duty: 07+ years in the army & 17 years in the air force. I'm sorry to write that we as a nation have brought this on ourselves. I'm afraid that we seem to be traveling the same road as the former Soviet Union. We will reap what we sow.

To the person who asked if the games featured have an 18+ rating, no they're not. Violent video games released in the US have a Teen rating only. Yet nudity will bag you a Mature or Adults Only rating. We really have a screwed up priority in this country.

A captain in the clip says: "We have what young Americans want and like." And a boy using a digital gun in the same clip, yells: "Die!" Now that is what I call "Army Strong" Death and destruction from war, wonderful values for our children courtesy of our Army.

This is an outstanding piece that captures the reality of the Army Experience Center - naive adolescents who believe the video games are an accurate representation of war and Army officers at the Center that support that same opinion. I have numerous problems with what the Army personnel said in the video, but I only have time to focus on a few.

CPT Auchey claims that the Army strives to be “ingrained with society” and that “whatever society is doing, that’s what the Army is going to be doing.” One quick example - “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” If a corporate or non-military government entity were to discriminate, as the Army does, against homosexuals, they would face numerous lawsuits, executives would lose their jobs, and the media would have a field day.

MAJ Dillard justifies the use of violent video games by saying that “if you see violence in a video game, that violence happens in real life - in the Army.” The only problem is that true combat is nothing like the violence one sees in a video game or the simulators - everything is smooth and scripted in the video game and the opposite in combat. Also, his reasoning is faulty in the sense that just because something happens in real life doesn’t mean we should expose impressionable children to it. Using his logic, because people procreate, we are justified in showing kids hardcore pornography and letting them participate in virtual acts of sex. Also, crime exists in real life but is the AEC allowing kids to play Grand Theft Auto? I doubt it.

No one is “terrified that it will work” as a recruiting tool - it did not work, and the AEC is being closed sometime in the future. What I’m terrified of is the fact that our Army and its officers feel it is appropriate to expose children to violent video games on the taxpayers dime.

Not only does this not make any sense despite Major Dillard's apologist explanation for it, but check out this
Special Report: Is the Army fixing recruitment goal numbers to justify SURGE in Afghanistan on the Veterans Today News Network?

http://www.veteranstoday.com/
modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9088

An investigative reporter for Slate, Fred Kaplan, has exposed the fact that the Army has lowered its 2009
recruitment goals in order to claim not only success but surpassing their goals. Mr. Kaplan learned that the Army lowered 2009 military recruitment quota by 10 to 15,000. This is the first decrease in enlistment quota since the Bush Administration ended.

An Army spokesman tap danced in an e-mail to Mr. Kaplan stating that the retention goal was lowered because of Pentagon budget limitations at a time when the Defense budget is as huge as any past President's.

What Mr. Kaplan failed to note was that what really makes no sense is that the Army did not have any budgetary limitations when it fielded a Military Recruitment Disney Land near Philadelphia, PA called The Army Experience Center. PBS Frontline aired an expose on this 21st century recruiting tool to entice teenagers to enlist as if war were a video game.

Our kids have lost touch with the value of life/death as a byproduct of a first world quality of life and the increased industrialization of our society. Our meat comes in package - we don't slaughter and butcher at home. Mano y Mano violence is far less common than in the past. The military is not teaching children that war is a game. We are as a society. I'm sure that a young man going to war during the Revolution or Civil war had a much clearer understanding of life/death than our modern children just by virtue of the lifestyle/technology.

The Army isn't teaching our children that war is a game or 'fun.' On one level or another our modern society makes being a "Warrior" (whether soldier, sailor, Marine, airman..) a mythical figure - and that's from mainstream society. Even to the elevation of pro athletes to legendary status - since most sports started as either combat skill training individually or were as lethal as combat in their original states. Consider even gymnastics and track and field events were training for ancient combat. Our society has always celebrated the skills, talents, 'maturation' of 'soldierly' training. Until very recently in U.S. History, military service was an unofficial requirement for Presidential Candidates. A lack of military service was a point of criticism.

Before video games there were movies, before movies, there were books, before books there were the oral tradition of hero tales. Video games as marketing tactic is only a shift in medium, nothing more. Recruiters are salesmen/women - period. They recognize the change in their target market's lifestyle and are adapting their sales pitch. I still remember seeing recruiters at the mall when 'hanging at the mall' was the in thing - including the arcades. This approach is the same thing - but they are the arcade this time.

Much like violence in movies/tv or music, the other factors that surround a child's development are still far more influential on a child's sense of right and wrong because those influences combine to create a moral context. Parents, family, schools, peers, and media all factor in. Stay in touch with kids, be involved with their lives. Even play their video games to see what they are experiencing. Use it as an opening for conversations on values, ethics, morals, and your own experiences with violence if these things concern you.

I've spent 13 years in the service and had my own grand delusions of what life in the service was going to be like. Unless you've 'been there done that' (and I mean combat not just service) you are still working from a fantastic delusion about what 'war' is really like as well.

My challenge to viewers is this: Play one of your child's/student's video games for a month to see what is really going. Go into these recruiting centers and get a first hand experience. Work from a position of information and experience. Please. Lead by example by being thoughtful and analytical on this topic. That is the model that should be presented to our children.

If we don't want recruiters to use video games to teach our children that war is a game; we definitely don't want be the ones teaching our children to form opinions based on one news report instead of research, reflection, and consideration. Otherwise we risk sending the unintended message that we don't value their lifestyle when the Army is saying they do.

I joined the military when I was 17 years old and living in a dead-end town without a chance of going to college. It was, without a doubt, one the best decisions I have ever made.

But this recruiting approach is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and is on par with drug dealing as far I am concerned.

Besides being a dehumanization of violence; creating what appears to be a lack of morality or thought behind violent actions; the fact is, these games have one focus: killing other humans.

America needs more scientists, engineers, doctors and veterinarians. Otherwise, we are going to find that our society has nothing else to offer the world except violence.

NOTHING can really show what a war is like, the media is truly deceitful