Sir, Yes, Sir
About two weeks ago, the US military finally released a Mac version of America's Army (AA), the first of many video games it is going to release to the civilian population. The goal of the game from the army's standpoint is a mix of recruiting tool and marketing / propaganda (is there a difference?) effort. So far, so good.
Before heading out into combat, you have to go through some basic training. After surviving weapons training with a rifle (the model number escapes me; I got the rank of marksman), running an obstacle course, and lobbing grenades at trees, I was fit for combat. I promptly joined a couple of team–based missions where I was quickly slain (shot in the back like a rat!) by a number of player killers (PKs... the bane of online gaming) posing as fellow squad members. Oh well.
Here's where it gets complicated. The military is so preponderant in popular culture that I have a hard time playing the game without slipping into memories of movies such as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Three Kings, Black Hawk Down and others. I find myself blurting out quotes from these movies (with a Southern accent*, like say from Fort Benning, Georgia, for example) both during and after playing and wondering just what kind of soldier I would be.
- Would I be like the the fat boy in Full Metal Jacket, gone psycho after been beaten with too many bars of soap in my bunk, ending my days seated on the head, after having taken my sergeant out only moments earlier?
- Or would I be that same sergeant months earlier, grown old and crusty after many years of trying to make soldiers out of men, finding myself chewing out one of my men, let's call him Private Snowball (my nickname on the AA web boards), amazed that they stacked shit that high ?
- Or would I be a regular jarhead content to chant, while marching, "This is my rifle / this is my gun / this is for fighting / this is for fun!" (cue shot of me grabbing my crotch)?
- Or would I be there with George Clooney and Ice Cube, stealing Iraqi gold, and chanting for George Bush père while listening to Plastic Bertrand in the desert?
Too many flashbacks from movies. Having difficulty separating reality from fiction. What was real though was that dis–illustiioned, loser guy on my high school bus in Fredericton who had worked it all out how to take the high school with as little as three men armed to the teeth. What was merely weird then (just beyond funny–hmm, as opposed to funny–haha) is now become a real problem today. But I digress.
And so I found myself recently asked to take over our efforts on the military simulation side, complementing my existing game focus. That meant bringing our military product info up to speed, or in this case, actually creating some. This meant "marketing to the military" which is either just plain weird or doesn't sound right. The next question being, how far do you go in being enthusiastic about your product, and the inevitable role it has in making people better able to kill others. (It's harder than you think; most companies prefer to skirt the issue, embracing higher ideals like liberty and freedom.) And throw in my gung–ho–edness related to playing America's Army and my Southern accent, and you had a first draft that was not very short of "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."
My boss was a little freaked out at first as well, and he's from the parts of Alberta where kids learn to shoot shotguns before picking up a hockey stick, but I digress. A little freaked out by the whole affair, I went home, got some so–so sleep, and made a mental note to revise the page the next morning. Which I did.
'Nuff said, Soldier. Sir, Yes, Sir.
* = In fact, I find myself using a Southern accent a lot on the phone these days, especially for the simulation clients. I also tend to say the word "Hooa" alot now.
