COMING THIS XMAS TO AN XBOX NEAR YOU

Compliments of the US Army, and Redstorm Entertainment. www.truesoldiersgame.com

Posted this link on my theological blog without comment, but here for some reason (possibly just to round out what I had to say about football a few weeks ago) I feel inspired to add my two cents worth.

For most of human history, the experience of warfare has been made up mostly of months and months of campaigning: two armies marching around the countryside at a speed of a few miles a day, each looking for an opportunity to bring its enemy to battle on a ground of its own choosing. The battles themselves might last as long as dawn to dusk, and mostly consisted of two large groups of armed men trying to stab one another with sharp weapons or maybe shoot each other with arrows. Most of the casualties generally came late in the day, after one side had broken down or been outmanuevered, and the guys who could afford good armor and fast horses (and had been watching from the hilltops all morning) got to chase after the other guys (who had thrown away their weapons and were running away as fast as they could) and chop their heads off from behind. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the other side jumped on their fast horses and rode off into the sunset to fight another day.

And as bloody as these slaughters could get, most of the actual casualties in warfare still generally came from disease brought about by months and months of camping out in the countryside with thousands of other guys -- rotten food and a lack of clean water, poor sanitation, crowded conditions, foul weather....you get the picture. But for a relatively well-to-do young man on the winning side, it could sure seem like a helluva adventure. And of course, these were the guys who also got to live to tell the tale to their children and grandchildren.

Nowadays, of course, things are a lot different. Our soldiers in Baghdad can eat burgers and pizza if they choose, take hot shows and crap in real toilets, phone home, watch TV, surf the web, even play video games. They commute to the battlefield in armored vehicles, possess the most advanced weaponry technology can produce and money can buy, and the best medical care in the world is only moments away. But if anything, the experience of warfare in the 21st century is worse than it has ever been.

We think we have sanitized warfare because we can now kill each other by remote control. But the constant stress of daily life in a combat zone, and the intimate knowledge that one is there to kill and can be killed without warning at any moment, has serious psychological consequences that we are only slowly beginning to understand and grapple with. Combat is an inherently stressful and unnatural activity. The question is not whether it will affect our soldiers, but how and when.

High tech kevlar body armor and superb battlefield medical care haven't really reduced the number of casualties our soldiers suffer; they've simply changed the ratio between the killed and the wounded. And then there is always the issue of morale. Patriotism and the power of positive thinking can only take us so far in justifying an activity sustained by lies and inherently without meaning.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing but the greatest respect and gratitude for the young men and women who have volunteered to put their lives on the line to do the important and necessary job of defending our country from armed attack. And if anything, I have even more admiration and respect for the somewhat older and more mature men and women who have committed their lives to training and leading these young people: giving them the skills they need to do their jobs well, and attempting to keep them safe and bring them home alive and unharmed by making good decisions under fire.

The folks I CAN'T abide are the cynical and ambitious civilian leaders who have thoughtlessly put our soldiers in harm's way in order to enrich themselves and their croneys, settle old scores, prove to their mothers that they are just as good as their fathers, and consolidate their hold on political power for another generation. Their own children sit safely in the elite bastions of power, untouched by the horror of warfare, and waiting for their turn to rule the world. Because they are the "winners." And everyone knows that the army is for "losers."

And it makes me sick. Because war is not a game.

And neither, frankly, is politics.