Virtual Reality?

That magic box with the flashing lights. As a somewhat tom-boyish twelve year old, the Nintendo 64 my brother got for Christmas one year was a toy of envy for me. Though it's laughably rudimentary in the video gaming world now, that small plastic black box with the blinking lights produced images that put us in another world and kept us entertained for hours on end.

Though my video game days are pretty much numbered (I was never any good anyways), my brother is still engrossed with the virtual reality world. And instead of seeing the familiar cartoon-ish characters of SuperMario and Diddy Kong Racing, images of bloody battles and brutal war flash on the screen in front of him. And even though it's been about a month since I've been home, since I could hear the muffled sounds simulated gunfire and screams creeping up from the basement, I know he's still playing constantly.

Despite my parents’ warnings and the best regulations, he bought even more violent war video games, like Call of Duty. As he played more, not only did his reflexes get better, but he continued to understand the strategies and tactics involved in playing the game. When he got Xbox Live and could talk to other players via headset, he began strategizing and scheming even more.

As Rodger Stahl says in his article "Have you played the War on Terror?", increasingly the way today's youth understand war and how it works is through media -- in particular, video games. It seems every time we turn around, there's some new war video game. America's Army. Doom. War of Worldcraft. Call of Duty. Call of Duty 2 and 3 and 4. These games are flooding the shelves of our favorite electronic stores.

Partially, I think this this is because the way games are played is similar to that of war. There are two or more sides with opposing goals or views. You're either on one side or the other and are trying to defeat the other side(s). Think about it as a soccer game: one team is trying to score in one goal, the other team wants to score in the other goal. Your offense tries to accomplish this goal, whereas your defense tries to prevent or defeat the other team from accomplishing their goals. There is some level of strategy involved and a need for communication. And even though I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about hordes of soccer players plotting world domination, I am fairly certain that the basic ideas behind warcraft are not unfamiliar to today's youth.

How to Tell a True War Story

No matter how many war stories I've heard from my Grandpa, none of them can offer an objective truth. At least, that's what author Tim O'Brien suggests in his short story 'How to Tell a True War Story'.

“It's about love and memory. It's about sorrow. It's about sisters who never write back and people who never listen”

We have writers like Tim O'Brien, Michael Herr and, the man, the myth, the legend, Tom Wolfe, to thank for New Journalism, a style of writing that fused real-life experiences with descriptive, novel-like writing. From New Journalism sprouted the film version of the genre, known as the docudrama, that constitutes most of the military films we see in theaters today.

Gates argues that the increasingly better film technology, notably CGI effects, and a resurgence in proactive military support post-9/11, have contributed to Americans' distorted perceptions of war.

And I have to say I agree. These films are filled with cinematic eye-candy for newly patriotic audiences, but rarely keep true to the original fact --- for the storyline's sake of course! What we get is a general public who use entertainment to substitute their perceptions and opinions of the military.