War Games Lure Recruits For 'Real Thing'

[unhappycamper]

Staff members at the Army Experience Center in Philadelphia demonstrate the Humvee interactive simulator in 2009.


War Games Lure Recruits For 'Real Thing'
by Windsor Johnston
July 31, 2010 from WRTI

A controversial Army Experience Center in a northeast Philadelphia shopping mall will soon close its doors after a two-year pilot program. With regard to its military outreach efforts, the multimillion-dollar facility has declared "mission accomplished," but opponents question the Army's version of reality.

At the center, teenage boys sit in a row of Army-green recliners facing flat-screen monitors. They square off in video war games like the popular Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Once visitors register and prove they're 13 years or older, they're given free access to the facility's array of war-themed games.

Army Experience Center spokesman Capt. John Kirchgessner says the center has proved more effective than traditional recruiting methods. Using technology to create a relationship with the public "is a much better way to share our Army story than to simply smile and dial and ask someone if they thought about joining lately," he says.

The facility also houses three simulators: Apache and Blackhawk helicopters plus an armored combat Humvee. John Gallato, 18, and three of his 15-year-old friends sit atop the Army vehicle eagerly waiting for their mission to begin. With a lifelike machine gun in hand, Gallato says experiences like this will help prepare him for the future.

"I'm going to be killing people," he says. "I'm actually joining the Marines and will be doing this in real life."



unhappycamper comment: Too bad the Army doesn't take the newbies to Walter Reed or any of the VA hospitals around the country to see the flip side of shooting people. No faces, no legs, no arms, no consciousness, no 'fun'.

TBI and PTSD are also worth showing the kids but I guess the kids need to experience it to understand it.

[pinboy3niner]

1. I'll second your comment

One situation where gaming may possibly be useful is in treating PTSD. I was surprised to see gaming equipment at the local Vet Center, but apparently it's used to 'trigger' war memories as a part of treatment.

We used to do the same thing with cognitive therapy aided by books and movies, and I remain skeptical about gaming in the Vet Centers.

But gaming for recruitment? It might be great for luring recruits based on the lie that it approximates the real combat situations they may have to face. But it's still a lie to sell combat as fun and games on a monitor.

[txlibdem]

3. Treating PTSD with virtual reality simulation

Here's another method that may be a better and faster treatment. While viewing recreations of their most traumatic experiences, the patient is given medication that blocks the creation of long term memories. It seems counter-intuitive but reliving the memory brings it back to the surface where the memory inhibitors can prevent it from returning to long term memory.

There have been several methods of erasing and replacing memories recently researched. These experiments have tried to discover what in the brain needs to be manipulated for successful memory erasure as well as what is the most effective way to achieve this goal. In an experiment by New York University researchers, rats were trained to fear a beeping sound as well as a siren by being shocked when either was sounded. A group of the rats were given the drug U0126, which affects memory. When the beep or siren was sounded, the rats that were given the drug were no longer afraid. However, it is not known exactly how U0126 affects memory, but it must be used when the memory is being relived.

http://www.as.miami.edu/english/wiki105/index.php?title=How_to_Erase_a_Single_Memory

[PCIntern]

2. One of my patients made a fortune from this place...

they had to get it up and running real fast, so his company was used for rapid construction of certain aspects of it...millions of dollars...and he was smiling all the way to the bank. He told me the other day that it was closing, and was just shaking his head..."your tax dollar at work."

[MH1]

4. We shouldn't have to put so much into recruitment

it's time for universal service, maybe then the security clearance bar wouldn't be set so low that fucked-up assholes like Bradley Manning could get through.

[Occulus]

5. You know, I'm getting pretty fucking sick of people saying "universal service" and "draft"

when there are people like me out there who never had the chance to CHOOSE to serve in the first place.

What- after a lifetime of being told I'll be thrown out if I'm honest about myself, now I'm hearing people supposedly on the same side of the political spectrum saying I should be forced into it?

FUCK THAT!!!

[MH1]

7. That's not what universal service means.

You would still get a choice. But you would have to do SOMETHING. Being forced to spend 2 years in service to your country in some manner, plus hazard pay as appropriate, would mean enough qualified people would choose the military.

I think DADT and discrimination against gays and women in the military is wrong and I will be glad when DADT is repealed. But I don't think anyone should be forced into military service. There should be plenty of other options, like Americorp or a new CCC or fire defense force (which would also get hazard pay) and stuff like that. There's a hell of a lot of good ways such a force could be employed.

[JonLP24]

6. He went to Fort Huachuca

You have to pass a very thorough background check before you can go there for training. I recall many holdovers in Basic Training waiting for whoever to finish with their checks before they shipped out for AIT. I even applied for a security clearance but I was denied. It certainly isn't easy. Raising the bar or what not doesn't mean you won't get someone with a conscious who doesn't like what he/she is seeing and feels that is necessary to release the information.

[MH1]

8. I am familiar with Ft. "Wegotcha" and the clearance process

After reading some stuff about Manning I wondered how he ever got there and assumed the bar had been lowered.