Kids Learn that 'Killing Is Fun' at the Army's Lethal New Theme Park

[Orwellian_Ghost]

Army Experience Center offers simulations at mall
Posted 8/30/2008
By Kathy Matheson, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA — "Heads up! Enemy helicopter inbound!"

It's not something you'd expect to hear at a store in an American shopping mall but, then again, not many malls have Black Hawk helicopter simulators.

The new Army Experience Center, which opened Friday at the Franklin Mills Mall, is not exactly a store, although it is trying to sell something — the military life.

Staffed by soldiers eager to share their experiences and stocked with high-tech simulators, video gaming stations and interactive exhibits, it's a new frontier in marketing for Army officials who hope to give the public a better understanding of today's military.

<snip>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-08-30-army-experience-center_N.htm

The Army Experience Center , located in the Franklin Mills Mall just north of Philadelphia , bills itself as a "state-of-the-art educational facility that uses interactive simulations and online learning programs to educate visitors about the many careers, training and educational opportunities available in the Army."

Nonsense. The only thing they're teaching here is how to blow shit up. If it's state-of-the-art anything, it's state-of-the-art adolescent boys’ wet dreams.

"Too slow! Do it again!" yells the voice in my earphones as a new sequence of armed figures in camouflage pop up in front of me. I -- the player -- am attached to the foreshortened barrel of an M-16 -- and a little embarrassed by that. It's not my thing, really. And I wasn't expecting the game to involve having to tolerate some dickhead's personal opinion about my marksmanship.

But I didn't come here to get yelled at or to play games. I came because I was curious about the Army's latest marketing strategy. For $12 million, this place has been dressed to kill: 15,000 square feet (about three basketball courts) done up in brushed steel, glass and low-light glam. But what this place is really about is the bling: strings of networked Xbox 360 pods and individual gaming stations. And the crown jewels: a UH-60 Black Hawk, an AH-64 Apache and a Humvee. Simulators. And it's all entirely free.

<snip>

Behind a glass wall, there are 40 more terminals facing a wall of plasma screens: the Tactical Operations Center , where local educators (principals, superintendents, school counselors and teachers) are given an earful about how misunderstood the military is.

<snip>

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11457

[sakabatou]

1. See kids

Isn't killing people fun?

[izquierdista]

2. Somedays, you just can't tell

What's the diff between the United States and Nazi Germany? Oh yes, in one they went around yelling "Heil Hitler" all the time.

[Joe the Liberal]

3. Get'em while they're young.......

and impressionable!

[Downtown Hound]

4. In Philadelphia too

An area that's even more economically depressed than most of the nation. Lots of poor kids there for the plucking. Since it's called the army experience, I wonder if they take them to funerals too?

[marylanddem]

5. Our tax dollars at work. This is so sick.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. my girlfriend will love this place,

she paid $500 for an hour in a real Cobra simulator a few years ago

Sounds like this is more likely to attract basement dwelling gamers than anybody useful for military service, is it located between EB Games and The Sony Store?

[Greyhound]

18. Basement dwelling gamers are one of their prime objectives.

Once they get that sig, they will quickly learn that there is no reset button, but it is too late then.

[HubertHeaver]

7. In the late '60's the US Army had a Hughey gunship placed

in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It was complete with replica M-60 machine guns. You could look through the gun-sights and see a simulation of a battle scene in Viet Nam--complete with human figures falling as the gun operator shoots them. Very popular with adolescent boys on a school field trip, horrific for their mothers and teachers. The exhibit was shut down in short order.

The Army goons just do not learn.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

8. Yes, the virtual thrill of the kill coming to a mall near you.

THE ARMY EXPERIENCE CENTER
Friday, December 5, 2008
Posted by Jim Hightower

From football to beach volleyball, competitive games can get your juices going.

But the ultimate game, the one that'll give you the greatest rush, is... what? Why, it's war, of course. Yeah, man, you literally get to kill the other team! How great is that?

Such thinking (if it can be called thinking) is behind the latest leap in marketing by the U.S. Army. In its constant effort to lure young people into the killing business, the office of military recruitment has come up with a whiz bang showcase to appeal to a generation that's been raised on computer games and that hangs out at the mall a lot. It's called the "Army Experience Center," and the first one has opened right across from the Dave & Busters food and fun outlet in a mall in northeast Philadelphia.

With more than 14,000 square feet of prime mall space, the experience center is bigger than three basketball courts and is filled with lots of dazzle. There are nearly 80 video gaming stations, all sorts of interactive exhibits, a replica command-and-control center, and – best of all – a bunch of high-tech simulators that let the kids get a feel for the military action of, say, a Black Hawk helicopter.

The simulators are way cool. For example, youngsters can sit in a model chopper with a simulator that makes it seem as though they're ripping right over a mountain village, and – get this – they get the thrill of shooting at enemies in the village! Yes, the virtual thrill of the kill coming to a mall near you. And, indeed, the army says it hopes to replicate the experience all across the country.

<snip>

http://www.jimhightower.com/node/6665

[MilesColtrane]

9. Does it include the thrill of...

...having your balls blown off by an IED for no reason?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

10. Not included

Aug. 28, 2008: Jephondra McLean, an employee of the the Army Experience Center, sits in the Apache helicopter simulator in Philadelphia.

Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick called it "a learning laboratory" — but not just for those who are thinking of joining.

"It's incumbent upon the American public to know about their Army," Bostick said.

Great stuff Maj. Gen. but I think we already know about the predatory practices of the US War Machine.

This is some truly sick shit.

[Selatius]

11. If they can simulate the pain of being hit by 7.62mm rounds of an AK-47, then...

I would say the simulation is complete. Other simulations they could include may be the experience of stepping on a landmine or being shredded when your humvee gets targeted by a "peasant" carrying an RPG-7.

[fujiyama]

12. Wow Cool! I never knew it was so easy to be in the military!

Pshhh.. It's all a video game.

That arm or leg being blown off? That's just CGI.. Your buddy lying there, dying...Just a simulation. Iraq, Afghanistan? Those are just really big fucking arcades!

Oh well, nice way to desensitize kids at an early age.

[AlCzervik]

13. Getting dead, is that also included and do they have a re animator on staff?

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Cool simulator, but it has a refresh feature and I doubt the mosquitoes

have quite the right sound

Nor do I believe they can simulate the smell of your own sweat as you crawl on the ground with mosquitoes (bullets) flying just about you, or the THUDDD of bullets hitting the ground

Or the coppery smell of blood, as it trickles out (rather gushes out) from a patient as the medic drags this person out from in-between the firing lines, as the breathing becomes labored as the neck closes down the airway, even if for a moment

Nope, I doubt they can do that

You have to experience this shit for real

By the by, that is a real shootout, with a real patient, and a real medic... just not Iraq

[DFW]

15. Killing is fun!

Hell, I learned that from Alice's Restaurant back in the 1960s.

[gratuitous]

16. So where are these being installed?

Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills? Next to the Maserati dealership in La Jolla?

[ContinentalOp]

17. I wish we had that in the mall here!

So I could go tie up their machines playing videogames all day and harassing the recruiters.

[AwakeAtLast]

19. There are traveling ones, too

I've seen it at an air show near here. People stand in line for more than in hour in the hot sun to get into it.

[balantz]

20. When did I take the wrong turn to an evil planet?

Like I really want my kids to train to have fun slaughtering for the oligarchy.

I wish evil would take a long, long holiday.

[opihimoimoi]

21. This is abominable...sick...we gonna regret this shit sooner than later

[Sabriel]

22. The PTSD display is way cool!

And so's the Traumatic Brain Injury area! I can't wait to take the kids.

[RedCappedBandit]

23. I often find myself allured by the military

and I actually have zero interest in anything they do, and am just about as anti-war as they come.
I can only imagine how some of these young, impressionable children feel when they are bombarded with all this pro-military propaganda throughout our culture.