You mess with the bull you get the horns

During the beginning of WWI the United States had been content with staying out of the war, it was all European countries and it had no effect on America that was great enough to make us enter the war. However once the Lusitania was sunk it helped push the US into the war. They were outraged that Germans would sink an innocent passenger ship. Once the US declared war the Germans tried to defend their action but the US would not hear their excuses.

Operation Akmed extraction

To: Home Base
From: Alpha BigDog Charlie
December 20th 2010: 0800
We have successfully completed all parts of Akmed Extraction.
7 In-surgeons captured, Explosive materials found on site.
Intel leads us to believe there is another hideout nearby, but  exact location is unknown.
Proceeding to transfer detainees to a secure interrogation location.
Will proceed to try and coax Intel from them at that point.

From: Home Base
To: Alpha BigDog Charlie
December 20th, 2010: 1700
Be careful in your interrogations, short term injuries could cause us to lose this information while it could also have a long term effect by increasing violence against other troops. Be safe and get us this information.

The dead are everywhere

Looking back at past wars you realize, WWI killed 16 million people. That is a huge amount of people, when talking about it in class it averaged out to be around 10,000 people per day. How could so many die so quickly I wondered, well while watching a trailer on a movie reflecting great battles of WWI it occurred to me. Back then we were advancing weapons very quickly this cause other countries to be taken by surprise when these new weapons were in use, and these new weapons were very deadly. The machine gun was perfected so it could be used by one to kill many, also artillery was used heavily during the war which was like shooting bombs. Upon impact they would kill or injure everyone within a certain radius of the explosion. The last major upgrade was the tank. Which was like a mobile armored artillery cannon capable of dealing major damage upon the enemy. The amount of deaths left the world in shock and depression. So many family's were split up or destroyed that it would take years and new generations before the mental effects would wear off.

War's little helper

So since the 21st century, first person shooter games have become widely popular. They have also become widely hated by some for their violent, gruesome, and real portrayals of incidents. One of the major games that has drawn controversy is the Grand Theft Auto series. Many parents think the heavy violence makes kids want to preform those acts in real life toward people they dislike and other random people. I can understand where a parent does not want their kid to be hijacking cars and in one scene buying a female escort. However now I am beginning to hear that some people want to remove particular war games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and other Call of Duty titles. They say because it portrays war too realistically and we do not need our children killing all the time, that is influences us to not care about human life, to just care about winning.

I think that this is a completely absurd idea for many reasons. The first being that the video game industry is making billions of dollars per year off these games, they are also creating thousands if not millions of jobs. These games are a major role in our economy and to remove them would send this current recession into something far worse. My next point is that I think they are used as a motivational tool to get people to think about war, and militarise. This little game could get people to thinking of joining the army to help protect our freedom. I know when war has broke out in the past and we did not have enough volunteers we turned to a draft to get the men we needed. If people want to join the army because they like the atmosphere of the game then let them, I have no problem with the games in that prospective. I do think that some kids playing these game have no idea that the game is far from the real thing. These games even though they are considered mature and graphic, are still really clean when it comes to what actually happened. Now is it a bad thing that they do not know how severe things really are? I do not think it is, the kids need to know what happened in the past or why we fought in wars. So why not do it in a way where they could enjoy learning about it. For the few who decide to join the army, they will find out soon enough about the truth and they will be slightly more prepared that the kid who joined the military never having played a war game in his life.

So when asked, should we eliminate these games for existence, I think we should all say no. The games benefits far outweigh its bad parts.

Months and no word....oh the terror

You think our soldiers today have it bad? Leaving their families to go fight in Iraq, they get to call home, text home, and sometimes even web cam home. They have it a lot better than they did in WWI. Back then it would take weeks for a letter to get from its sender to its receiver, IF it even made it. So imagine being a wife who's son or husband was shipped out and knowing that they might not be alive by the time their letter gets to you. It is also hard on the soldier because they could die before their loved ones letter gets to them. That would be a awful way to die. I think it was a huge mental stress to be continents away and trying to communicate.

Flying and dying are too close together

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a pilot? Better yet how would you like to be a pilot in WWI? Sounds fun doesn't it, you get to fly around and shoot planes down and bomb things. Well after playing the game titled Dogfight I think that you need a lot of guts to have been a pilot in WWI. Their planes were not the greatest, the guns often jammed, and many pilots died from loosing control of their plane. If you were not careful you could shoot your own wing man trying to get away from the guy shooting you. You had to constantly be looking over your should to make sure you were not being shot at. So the next time you say "I wanna be a fighter pilot." Remember, its not all that it is cracked up to be.