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Army Teaching Kids Killing is Fun

By possum

Growing up in the South, my brothers and I learned to respect weapons and to handle rifles and shotguns from the time we were little persons. nbsp;Today's kids get a different set of lessons thanks to our military establishment. nbsp;The Army Experience Center (AEC), located in the Franklin Mills Mall just north of Philadelphia is a state of the art video game and entertainment center a href=http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/113079?page=entiredesigned/a to show children the "fun" to be had in wartime military actions.blockquoteIf it's state-of-the-art anything, it's state-of-the-art adolescent boys' wet dreams./blockquote br / blockquoteFor $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./blockquoteYes there are fancy systems with touch screens allowing the kids to see all the openings and training opportunities available today. nbsp;But that is not the draw.blockquoteIt's the shiny toys and virtual adrenaline rush that brings them in./blockquoteblockquoteThere are no mixed messages at the AEC: being in the Army is about getting to play with boy toys, 24/7./blockquoteSimulated trainers allow the visitors to ride a Black Hawk helicopter or a Hummer in battle situations. nbsp;One game available, America's Armyblockquoteis unapologetically about realistic, deadly combat -- minus the blood. A hit registers as a puff of red smoke. Four puffs and you are "engaged."/blockquoteAn Army spokesman claimed blood and gore were not being used to glorify military activity. nbsp;But the distinction between bloodless violence and reality may be blurred for many.blockquoteLt. Col. Dave Grossman has written extensively on the psychology of killing, and he argues that it's not that people can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality, but that these games use virtual experience to systematically desensitize and condition./blockquoteGrossman goes further to warn Americansblockquoteare reaching that stage of desensitization at which the inflicting of pain and suffering has become a source of entertainment; vicarious pleasure rather than revulsion. We are learning to kill, and we are learning to like it./blockquote pThe AEC is limited to children age 13 and above for action games and simulators but younger kids are welcome to see the movies. nbsp;Provisions of NCLB (No Child Left Behind) forces schools to provide recruiters with contact information for children as young as 11 years. pEd Walters, the Army's first official chief marketing officer insists the AECblockquotes not a recruiting center./blockquoteMaybe not in the current military handbook descriptions, but the idea behind the center is to attract children to the military way. pPeace.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/NionRssFeed?a=9vMWO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/NionRssFeed?i=9vMWO" border="0"/img/a /div

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on December 20, 2008 (boomark / email).