Where Politics And Video Games Collide

@ Austin Lewis & @ jds

I'm not trying to counter what you said in general, and first, I hope that your friends and any family in the military continue to have the good luck to not get deployed to Iraq (or Afghanistan), as well as enjoying the potential military benefits without other excessive danger or disruption.

However, most Active Duty jobs in the Army and Marines right now get deployed to Iraq at least once in a 5 year period, and in those states which have always sent their people (to cover the war for those states that can't or won't), Guard and Reserves in GENERAL will go minimum twice in 5 years.

Obviously there are jobs less likely to ever get deployed, and states where the Guard and Reserves are just free/cheap college providers, but the first isn't common outside the Air Force and certain jobs in the Navy, and the second means the rest of us go more often to make up for it. However, that's ignoring issues of rank--if you know mainly officers of certain ranks, or the highest-ranking NCOs, then yes, they may never get deployed, ever, and yes, they won't make only the 20-some thousand dollars a year privates through low-ranking NCO's are likely to see.

But a lot of us here don't have friends/family at those levels, and regardless of where we stand on the usage of videogames of recruitment tools, it's mostly non-comissioned soldiers, primarily infantry and cavalry of low ranks, being targeted with them. The very people who most likely WILL see the horrors of war firsthand, and be deployed for ungodly lengths of time with no real bonuses save danger pay and no taxation.