Virtual Reality and Its Effect On Military Forces

Anyone who is reading this post can probably guess where this is going, but I will let you know that there is more to the title's relation than the Call of Duty video game series (along with other military-related video game series). This is but a minor detail in the phenomenal relationship between virtual reality and military forces.
"Technology is wrapped up in the story of war...the Internet to jet engines...these are all things where the military has been a driver for technology." P.W. Singer, the author of Wired for War, said this in a recent video article done by PBS Frontline called Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier. Coincidentally, the event that sped up the production of video games was a top-secret project funded by the Pentagon to create a portable gaming system (Mahood 2011). The initial purpose was to train troops with mobility. Unfortunately, the result is what we know today as Pong (which Atari coined after improving the first prototypes). Although embarrassing for the Pentagon, and the wasteful use of American's tax dollars, this did speed up the production of video games as mentioned before. 

On a larger scale than Atari's Pong, or teens playing Call of Duty, technology has advanced in such extremes that the war in Iraq can be fought without actually being present in the country of Iraq. Don't understand? In Digital Nation, men are filmed in a room where they control unmanned aircrafts flying over the desert of Iraq to execute special missions. Where are they? The desert of Las Vegas, Nevada. "Airmen here are required to wear flight suits to work, even though they sit 7,500 miles away from the battlefield...(said by unknown voiceover from Digital Nation)...drones have the capacity to strike with extraordinary precision, and at no cost to American lives." This may be a known concept to some, but I was shocked to see and hear that there is a place where men can control an aircraft from thousands of miles away, order a fatality to a terrorist, and go home to their family within a matter of minutes. There may be a stipulation on how this relates to virtual reality or video games, but I believe that the relation is obvious.

 

The picture to the left captures these "drone-flyers." If you look closely, there are black objects to the left and to the right of the computer's keyboard. Look familiar? These men are controlling their aircraft with more than just a click of a button, but rather the pushing of a video game controller. My first question was, "Is there training for a job like this?" Digital Nation immediately answered it. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania there is a center where kids ages 13 and up can go and play combat video games for free. The purpose for this center, called The Army Experience, was not to supply a place where kids can go and hang out...that would suggest that military-related video games are the only ones available to the center. This is unrealistic. Instead, there are military personnel who come in and out of the center and "recruit" young people into the Army. Kids under the age of 17 aren't allowed for recruitment, but the very environment encourages the participants to keep the option open. Although this is controversial for pacifists and parents who are against violent video games, this recruitment strategy has proven positive since the center was planted three years ago (Rachel & Rushkoff, 2010).

I am not sure how to end this post rather than ending it with a question - how in the world are people smart enough to advance technology in this way, and where do you think the military will be in ten years? The latter rather than the former is relevant, but you get the idea.

Works Cited:

10 years after 9/11. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.city-analysis.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/k.iveson-10-years-after-9.11-fig-1-e1315655222670.jpg

Dritzen, R. (Producer), & Rushkoff, D. (Producer) (2010). Digital nation: Life on the virtual frontier [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Mahood, C. (2011, November 21). Interview by S Monroe [Personal Interview]. Communication technologies. History of Video Games, San Antonio, Texas.