Re: Recruiting

So I'm reading this...

The teenagers crowding Six Flags Over Georgia during this week's spring break have an alternative to the endless lines for the Georgia Scorcher: a virtual combat zone set up by the U.S. Army to thrill these kids, entertain them and maybe even recruit them.

The Virtual Army Experience —- a noisy world of genocidal killers, Humvees and improvised explosive devices —- looms under a tent at the edge of the park. The show, which launched at the Daytona 500 in early 2007, travels the country and already has had 60,000 visitors.
<...>
"Listen up, soldiers!" shouts Josh Hernandez, a Green Beret with a shaven head, square jaw and T-shirt that defines every muscle rippling beneath it. "Your mission is to deliver supplies to a humanitarian aid force inside hostile territory. But a genocidal indigenous force will try to stop you!
<...>
Hernandez leads the youths onto a gaming floor with six full-size Humvees and two overwatch stations, each positioned in front of a panoramic bank of floor-to-ceiling video screens. The participants were issued replicas of M-4 carbine assault rifles with pneumatic recoil so they feel like real guns when fired.

The Humvees, though stationary, seem to approach in convoys through a cartoonlike projection of dusty streets and cruddy storefronts. One store has a fading billboard of a man holding up a bottle of soda pop. "Taste!" it reads.

The bad guys emerge from the building. Bam! The teenage sharpshooters kill them with lasers.
<...>
The scream of a female voice rises above the cacophony. This is not a game effect but a young girl manning the turret gunner in one of the Humvees. The lights of the IED simulation startles her. Hers is the only scream.

Eventually the animation leads across a bridge to a place that looks like a bombed-out hospital where healers attend the sick.

"Mission Accomplished" read all the monitors. Game over.

Hernandez then brings the teens together to watch a video about Sgt. Jason Mike, a Silver Star recipient who provided medical services and cover fire for his unit after it was ambushed on patrol south of Baghdad.

As a special surprise, Mike, himself —- one of eight "Real Heroes" traveling with the show —- runs out from behind a door to address the group. He tells them the ambush was like the game, but it took 45 minutes and it was, well, real.

(Insert your own "reality" joke here.)

And for each of the players, "...the Army has a parting gift: a CD with a version of the game to play on his computer."

Audio Feed

Deep Background: A Blogosphere Panel On Iraq.

With Bill Roggio, Mike Totten, Austin Bay, Jules Crittenden, and Glenn Reynolds.

Every Day Heroes

From the Washington Post:

A Virginia Family Man's Sacrifice

Roanoke-Based Soldier Killed After Taking His Wife's Place on Deployment

By Kristen Mack, Washington Post Staff Writer

Sgt. Jesse A. Ault rejoined the National Guard to take the place of his wife, Betsy, on a deployment to Baghdad.

He called home to Dublin, Va., every day he was in Iraq, including his last. Ault died Wednesday in Baghdad of wounds suffered in Tunnis, Iraq, when his vehicle encountered a makeshift bomb, the military said. Ault, 28, was assigned to the Roanoke-based 429th Brigade Support Battalion.

Ooops... They Did It Again