Wow! Saw this on Ars Technica, and I have stolen the photo because it is so good, at least good in the sense of bad, or do I mean the inverse? (So, Ars, when your readership figures, like treble or something as a result, feel the love. Right.)
Quote from an article in Time Magazine.
"Raised on Nintendo and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, the troops fighting this war want to experience the kind of battle promised to them by Splinter Cell and Total Recall. The videos they make are an attempt to salvage a war whose coherence crumbled soon after Saddam's statue fell."
I remember reading an article about the kids at Columbine who had played Doom and related titles to the point where they were able to shoot their victims without mercy, but also with one bullet each. In conventional warfare, the target is treated to a hose like bombardment with thousands of bullets just to be sure. In these guys eye's, they were in a screwed up video game, and one bullet per was enough. They were mad. Madness is as it does, but what of the troops that are on the ground in Iraq?
I think that they have left the building. They're there, but not engaged. In front of them there are images, and some of them are of real life, but not frankly, enough of them.
Only reality can pay dividends, not just in combat. When do we start giving soldiers lessons in Zen or mindfulness like the Samurai?
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