"What Is It Good For Absolutely Nothing"

One of the most common goals of America is to avoid war between out nation. Little do we know war has already been started in America, in fact it has been started in our very own living rooms. Through games such as Call of Duty and Modern Warfare, civilians everywhere, no matter what the age, are allowed to virtually engage in combat.
Some people say that it is wrong to allow American children to play such violent games, and I for one agree with them. These violent games infect the minds of all who play them and waste so much of the player’s time. One thing that violent games do is down play the violence that really occurs in the battlefield. In these games there is a button the players can press that turns off the blood that is shown when their virtual soldier becomes injured. This is so realistic because you and I both know that in real combat there is no magical button that can turn the “blood effect” on or off. As a player in these games the point of view that is depicted is that of one looking at the virtual soldier, it is not played from a first person point of view, or through the eyes of the virtual soldier. This gives the gamer who is controlling the virtual soldier the opportunity to see the virtual soldier from almost every angle. Another thing that is given to the players is sonar; the sonar on the screen allows the players to see any opposing enemies that are coming their way. As useful as this is in the game it is not so in real warfare. In real warfare one cannot see what is behind him or check on sonar to see if there are soldiers from the opposing side coming to attack them.

Games that encourage violence and portray war as a fun and entertaining activity should not exist. The other day I saw a few middle school students playing COD and when I asked them what they were doing they replied “Just killing some Nazis with bazookas and M-16s”. This answer made me absolutely flabbergasted because children at the age of twelve should not be talking about killing Nazis with bazookas as if it were some fun activity. These games encourage violence, which is raising the future minds of America to view violence with positive connotations such as entertainment. Before the inventions of games dealing with war were invented, war veterans were more respected because war depicted by as it really was. Now the respect of these veterans is being cheapened because everyone sees war as it is portrayed in video games, which is not the reality. These are only a few of the many reasons violent games should not be allowed to exist.

The only reason violent games are played is because they are entertaining; this however is an atrocious reason to justify them because entertainment can be found in other things like sports and extra curricular activities. If the young children and youth who play this game really knew what war was like I guarantee they would be a lot less eager to play them. There is not justifiable reasons play these games, which is why I think they should not exist.

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Searchanddestroy2.jpg

Fight by Flight

What does someone think when he or she is an inch from death? The person is most likely afraid and is thinking what can I do to get out of this situation, then executes the proper actions needed to exit the situation. Pilots who engaged in air to air combat during WWI felt like this but were unable to do anything about the situation because they chose to put themselves in harms way to protect America. Another thing that happens it that ones mind goes automatically into "survival mode", also known as the flight or flight response.  It is as if the flight option was taken away and the  only option they had was fight. I am sure that when the pilots were engaging in air to air combat they were not thinking of anything else other than that exact present moment. During that time all they thought was what must I do to survive and how can I defeat the enemy.

We're Only a Letter Away

In today's society it is so easy and convenient to communicate with others across the globe, sadly before facebook and texting was created the only means of communication over seas was through phone calls and letters. The soldiers that were fighting over seas in WW1 had many frustrations such as the time it took to receive and send letters, and the accuracy of the letter. Depending on where the letter was sent from it, at times, took weeks for soldier's families to receive them. This is why many families received letters from dead relatives. After reading these letters from WW1 it made me realize how much technology has changed the way we socialize and how frustrated I would have been if the only means of communication I had to my family was through letters.