Murder.
“What makes this opportunity so valuable is the precise and comprehensive multimedia record that is critiqued at nightly review sessions by soldiers and officers, much like a football team analyzes its games, plays, and opponents. “It’s like watching plays on the ball field over and over again.... the technology lends a video game aspect to these war games’’
I would overturn that call.
What do you mean there is no replay in world soccer?
Related: Video Game Graduations
A New Way to Earn Your Wings
And who makes the products you buy better?
"Practicing war — and watching it — in real time; New military system offers bases such as Camp Edwards a unique training opportunity" by Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | June 12, 2010
CAMP EDWARDS — The soldiers of Bravo Company push toward a village where the police chief has been killed by insurgents. Suddenly, gunshots erupt from a nearby tree line, the soldiers drop to the ground, and a Humvee-mounted machine gun answers with a ferocious, sustained burst of 50-caliber rounds.
Shouts, noise, and movement mix in quick-time confusion.
But what might seem like the fog of war to Bravo Company is familiar choreography to battlefield observers sitting in a trailer a mile away, where they were monitoring part of the largest military exercise held at this Cape Cod base since World War II.
There, sitting calmly before a bank of monitors, Army and civilian analysts use 3-D images to study each soldier in real time as the unit moves toward a facsimile of an Afghan village. They watch the soldiers crouch, they watch them shoot, they watch the “enemy,’’ and they watch as the town is captured during a firefight with blank ammunition.
This armchair quarterbacking, made possible by a GPS device planted on each soldier, is part of a system developed by SRI International, a nonprofit scientific research institute that the National Guard uses to prepare units across the country for combat in Afghanistan and Iraq....
Specialist Kory Desmond, 21, of Peabody, who is preparing for his second tour in Afghanistan, did not appear to mind that he had been “shot’’ in the chest during the drill, which used role players dressed as Afghan insurgents and civilians in a crackling, fast-moving scenario....
That realism extends to gruesome “wounds’’ affixed to soldiers by a California special-effects company, vehicle explosions, and replicas of improvised roadside bombs that have inflicted thousands of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan....
According to Brian Wright, an Army veteran and SRI manager, “the scenarios are about as realistic as they can be without being in combat.’’
Although mock villages, explosions, and role players have long been used in training, what makes this opportunity so valuable is the precise and comprehensive multimedia record that is critiqued at nightly review sessions by soldiers and officers, much like a football team analyzes its games, plays, and opponents.
“It’s like watching plays on the ball field over and over again,’’ said Lieutenant Colonel Jack McKenna, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Army National Guard said....
The technology lends a video game aspect to these war games....
Staff Sergeant Dwayne Simmons, an observer from the First Armored Division, mixes praise with a dressing-down.
“In the midst of killing the enemy, someone killed this poor civilian,’’ says Simmons, placing his hand on the shoulder of a bearded role player. “You just can’t do that in our business. We close and engage the enemy, not civilians.’’
The unarmed civilian, Simmons said, was shot in the back as he ran from the scene with his hands up. “You’ve got to practice muzzle awareness and thinking on the battlefield,’’ added Simmons, who has served two tours in Iraq.
Out of earshot of Bravo Company, Simmons was more generous in his analysis.
“They did great,’’ he says. “They stayed motivated, and they continued to assault the objective as they were supposed to.’’
But we are THERE to HELP!!!!
Next year, these soldiers — from the First Battalion, 182d Infantry Regiment, based in Melrose — are scheduled to test those skills in the villages and valleys of Afghanistan.
--more--"
Sounds FUN, huh, kids?
"Army to close high-tech recruiting center" by Associated Press | June 11, 2010
PHILADELPHIA — The Army is shutting down a flashy, high-tech information and recruiting center inside a mall, calling it a successful marketing experiment even as it attracted protesters and video game enthusiasts as much as potential soldiers....
The $12 million center opened in August 2008 with interactive video exhibits, nearly 80 video gaming stations, a replica command-and-control center, conference rooms, and Black Hawk helicopter and Humvee combat simulators....
It was also repeatedly targeted for protests by those who said the Army’s use of first-person-shooter video games desensitized visitors to violence and enticed teens into the military....
That's the idea.
Army spokesman Brian Lepley said the demonstrations had nothing to do with the decision to close the center, but activist Elaine Brower of Staten Island, N.Y., said she was thrilled. She had been particularly galled by the center’s mall location, between a skateboard park and an arcade.
I'll bet they got more arcade kids.
Officials initially said it might be replicated in other parts of the country.
Yup, on CAPE COD!
But as the recession set in and unemployment rose, enlistments increased and the Army began spending less on marketing.
Why are they spending ANY TAX MONEY on that?
Yet the Army Experience Center provided valuable information on how to connect with a generation used to getting information from computers and mobile devices, Lepley said.
Touch-screen kiosks showing the location of global Army posts and a “career navigator’’ displaying the service’s jobs and salaries proved popular, Lepley said....
Just like the wars, right?
The Army had closed five traditional recruiting stations when it opened the center. It’s now planning to open a pair of more modern recruiting offices in nearby Levittown and northeast Philadelphia, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Belcher said.
Army Xbox?
--more--"
Related: Army finds errors at Arlington graves
Also see:
- Slow Saturday Special: From One to One Thousand
- War Worship Weekend: Spiked by Star Wars
- War Worship Weekend: Avatars in Afghanistan
- War Worship Weekend: Globe Opens Its Eye on Gaza
- War Worship Weekend: Iraq Memorial
- War Worship Weekend: Ode to Obomber
- War Worship Weekend: Making the Transition
- War Worship Weekend: You're in the Navy Now!
- The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: AmeriKan Grave Robbery in Afghanistan
What's with the damn buzzing noise in the background anyway?
