I'm retired military. I play a lot of war games and I'm not bothered, it's just a game.
But what worries me about those games is that kids might get the idea that war is noble or adventurous or neat and clean, or anything like that.
Case in point. A couple of days ago I was playing an armor simulator. The commander of an AFV was turned out, manning the machine gun. I crept up to the edge of the forest and hit him dead center in the chest with a HEAT round from the cannon on my tank, then put a couple more into the vehicle, eliminating it from being a threat to anyone or anything.
Then I drove down into the village where they were set up, after taking out two more AFVs. As I drove past the dead AFV whose commander caught the HEAT round in the chest, the vehicle still looked nice, and the commander looked like he had drifted off into peaceful slumber.
That's not what war really looks like. If we're going to have games about war, let's depict things like it really looks. That way young people can make an informed decision about whether they really want to join the military or not.
Better they see things that they can't unsee in a game, rather than in real life. Maybe we'd have fewer wars if there weren't so many willing participants. When you figure out that it's insanity when your boots are already on the ground, it's a little late in the course of events to wake up to the fact that they lied to you your entire life.
Not much that you can do about it at that point, other than learn to live with all those things that you can't unsee.
