| Kucinich targets Army's video war game exhibit used for recruiting; Friday, March 13, 2009 Sabrina Eaton
The 19,500-square-foot game called "Virtual Army Experience" is recognized as the world's "Largest Traveling Game Simulator" in the upcoming "Guinness World Records 2009: Gamer's Edition." It includes six life-size vehicles fitted with modified laser guns and surrounded by more than 70 flat screens. Teams inside each vehicle are assigned a fictional mission of delivering supplies to endangered aid workers in the fake city of Nradreg. Up to 50 people play at once. The exhibit visits community festivals around the country like the Cleveland National Air Show, where Cleveland Democrat Kucinich encountered it. Kucinich, who opposes the Iraq war and wants to create a federal Department of Peace, says the exhibit "shields participants from the realities of killing while glorifying the taking of human life in a thinly veiled attempt to recruit new soldiers." In a letter sent Thursday to the House Committee on Armed Services, Kucinich said the exhibit's estimated $9.8 million yearly operating budget "could be better spent." The committee's chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, will review Kucinich's letter as the committee moves forward with writing this year's defense authorization bill, a committee spokeswoman said. "Exposing children to America's heroes is beneficial to both the children and members of the armed service," Kucinich's letter said. "However, this exposure must be honest and complete, rather than portraying an unrealistic or incomplete picture of what choosing future service to our country might entail." Virtual Army Experience Public Affairs Manager Amy Lindstrom said the exhibit should continue to get federal money because it has "proven to be an exceptionally valuable asset in support of Army outreach and the all-volunteer Army." She said the Army created it to give Americans a "high-tech means to explore the Army." Visitors register and are briefed on a simulated mission by veterans from operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. Later, the Army provides career opportunity information to those over age 17. She said that more than 150,000 people have passed through the exhibit since it opened in February 2007 and that reaction has been "overwhelmingly positive." However, the exhibit's 2008 Cleveland appearance drew protests from the Northeast Ohio chapter of Veterans for Peace, which got the event's organizers to limit admission to the exhibit only to those age 17 or older. This year, the veterans group will lobby to eliminate it from the air show, says chapter President Mary Reynolds Powell of Cleveland, who served as a nurse in Vietnam. "We feel the exhibit desensitizes people to violence and it trivializes what soldiers experience in combat," said Powell, who applauds Kucinich's effort. "War is not a game and this is not the way to recruit members of the armed forces." To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: seaton@plaind.com, 216-999-4212 ©2009 Plain Dealer© 2009 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.
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Washington -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich wants to kill federal funding for an immense traveling video game exhibit that acts as an Army recruiting tool by letting kids as young as 13 play soldier in modified Humvees armed with realistic weapons.