When “sick” equals cool.
Dylan Harbison said that the weapons simulator she got to use as part of Fun Day with the Missouri National Guard was “sick.”
It’s the 10th graders way of saying it was fun.
“It was pretty cool,” Harbison said of the high-tech, computerized simulator that allowed her to shoot bad guys as part of a virtual world that emphasizes marksmanship training. “There were screens all around me and we had to watch out for these guys who were trying to attack us. It looked so real. It was really, really sick.”
The government recruits future killers and/or to-be-brainwashed “citizen” tyrants from high schools by making war and people control seem “fun.” ‘Tis this “Fun Day” with the Missouri National Guard. A Staff Sgt. was quoted as saying, “We provide options for college or if they want to make the National Guard their career right after high school.” In other words, an automatic job and all the assorted government benefits. Sgt. Bell says they – the National Guard – are the real “citizen-soldiers.” No, citizen-soldiers do not work for and get paid by the state to follow orders. The militias are the citizen soldiers. The Guard likes to convey the image that it is somehow “different” than the rest of the government’s paid forces. Fail. (Thanks to Rick Vandeven for the FYI.)
Of course, if you really want to mix it up like the big boys, you can always entertain educate yourself at the Army Entertainment Experience Center in Philadelphia. This is a, like, you know, totally cool recruitment tool in the middle of a popular mall, and it happens to be close to an entertainment facility and indoor skate park (hint: things that attract kiddies).
It is manned by more than 20 Soldiers who are available to share their stories with visitors and answer questions they may have about the Army. Although the Soldiers who run the center are trained recruiters, the AEC is not a recruiting center, according to Ryan Hansen of Ignited Corporation, who partnered with the Army on the project.
“The center is an attraction tool. There is no recruiting mission here,” Hansen said. “Here it is more about changing perceptions.”
The Soldiers at the AEC don’t have quotas. They don’t wear traditional Army uniforms, but rather black Army polo shirts and khaki pants. They are from diverse backgrounds and have unique stories to tell. At first glance they seem more like tour guides than Army recruiters, and in a sense, they are.
Indeed – changing the negative perceptions about war, killing, and the total police state. At the Army Indoctrination center you can even man an Apache simulator and take up a gunner position, or perhaps the armored Humvee gunner game would be more your flavor? Certainly, this is a test center for future Army marketing (they call it a “pilot program”) as it looks to round up the next generation of malleable droids.
