C H A P T E R 39 • 5 2 4 7 W I L S O N M I L L S R O A D # 4 5 4 • C L E V E L A N D O H I O 4 4 1 4 3
Simulated Killing at the Air Show
This year, the Cleveland National Air Show is hosting a new exhibit called the “Virtual Army Experience” (VAE) that we think is inappropriate and unacceptable. Participants in this virtual urban warfare game hop into full-size Humvee simulators and fire machine guns at life-size people projected onto giant, wraparound screens.
Consider the following:
• The Cleveland Air show is promoted as a wholesome family activity.
• Technology that simulates killing human beings has no place at an event that purports
to be a celebration of aviation.
• The VAE misleads people about soldiering. It portrays a sanitized picture of war that
disrespects what real soldiers experience in combat and trivializes the burden they carry
the rest of their lives. War is not a game.
• The Army may call it “virtual,” but it inflicts real pain on those who have experienced
the physical and psychological trauma of combat, have lost loved ones in war, or have
lived with those who carry the scars of war.
• The VAE desensitizes young people to killing in our region, which has experienced
far too much urban violence.
• Labor Day celebrates working men and women. The Cleveland Air Show’s stated pur-
pose is to assist young people who seek careers in aviation.
• Tax dollars are being used to pay for the VAE.
Veterans For Peace opposes the inclusion of the VAE in this year’s Air Show. We respectfully
ask the Army, the organizers, and the sponsors to remove the VAE as an activity. We ask that
other peace activist groups, government officials, churches, mental health and educational
professionals, and most importantly, PARENTS, join us in voicing their opposition.
Turn over to see how you can help!
What you can do:
• Share this information with everyone you know including friends and family, churches, health and educational professionals, community associations, etc.
• Contact elected officials:
– Mayor: Hon. Frank Jackson (216.664.3990), or your own mayor
– City Council: Individual Councilperson or Clerk (216.664.2840), or your own council members
– Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners: Individual Commissioner or Administrator: 216.443.7215
• Contact local sponsors:
– Cleveland Air Show: Kim Dell; kdell@clevelandairshow.com; 216.781.0747
– Discount Drug Mart: Anita Fontana; afontana@discount-drugmart.com; 330. 725.2340 Ext 4478
– Cleveland Coca-Cola Bottling Company: Randy Cornette; 216.690.2653
– Metro Life Flight: Dr. Craig Bates; cbates@metrohealth.org; 216.778.2100
– Parker Hannifin: James Cartwright; 216.896.3000
– Cleveland Magazine: Lisa Sands; 216.771.2833
– The Wave (107.3): Lonnie Gronek; 440.236.9283
– WKYC-TV3: Micki Byrnes; 216.344.3333
– WDOK (102.1): Joe Restifo; 216.696.0123
• Contribute to a signature ad in the Plain Dealer. If the VAE is cancelled, the ad will thank the sponsors for taking action. see tear-off below
SIGNATURE AD:
City of Cleveland and Air Show Sponsors
We, the undersigned, oppose the inclusion of the Virtual Army Experience in the
2008 Cleveland Air Show. Simulated killing is not entertainment.
Please tear off and mail checks payable to: Veterans For Peace, Chapter 39; 5247 Wilson Mills Road, #454; Cleveland, Ohio 44143
Name Phone Number
Address
Email Amount enclosed
How you want your name listed in ad:
(Print clearly)
Veterans For Peace is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war.
<chapter39_vfp@yahoo.com>
nice job, chad… nice and clean, and simple is always more!
I personally think everyone one of you are crazy. Not deserving of the uniform you supposedly once wore. There is nothing wrong with a giant video game at an airshow. I would like to see what kind of video games are in your families’ homes. What a bunch of hypocrites. Oh……and the vae at the Milwaukee air show was not shut down. My sister’s children went to through the vae both days. I would check your source before you post a bunch of lies to further your ridiculous cause
MODERATOR NOTE: The VAE was pulled from Milwaukee Summerfest this summer.
http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=7/1/2008&id=42539
rebecca,
you think we are crazy and hypocrites. why? because we are concerned about our youth being exposed to violent video games that have the affect of desensitizing them to killing? most of us have served our country in wartime. i am a vietnam veteran, so i am familiar with what it’s really like to come under fire in combat. i would not wish that experience on your sister’s, or anyone else’s children. so, the uniform we SUPPOSEDLY wore? well, you are entitled to your opinion, but i have the DD214 (discharge papers) to prove my own service. and we’ve never said that the VAE was pulled from the milwaukee air show (if there even is one). it was pulled from the milwaukee summerfest. so, i hope this helps you better understand our concerns. feel free to post your comments in the future.
mike ludwig
member chapter 39
veterans for peace
I suppose there wouldn’t be anything wrong with a giant video game at the Airshow – if it was a flight simulator or was even remotely connected to aviation. But what place does the “Americas Army” video game have at an Air Show? Humvees don’t fly!
There are two serious reasons why this exhibit should be dropped:
1> Mental health professionals have repeatedly warned parents that games like this desensitize children to violence and conditions their minds that violence is acceptable – that picking up a gun is the way to solve problems. The Army HAD to be aware of this when they commissioned the creation of this game – such warnings were no secret. Yet they deliberately specified that the game be given a “Teen” rating.
2> This “game” is run by Army recruiters and its main purpose is to collect information on prospective recruits. What kind of nation allows its military to use tax dollars to create a game targeted at children as young as 13 years old in order to create a huge recruiting database? Talk about the government sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong!!
It is understandable that the Army needs to recruit, but they should limit their efforts to adults who are capable of making life and death decisions about their future. Trying to shape the minds of our kids into becoming “good little soldiers” with sanitized warfare while at the same time lining them up for future recruitment is unnacceptable to me as a parent, as a citizen, and as a veteran.
I speak as the father of six grown children. Protecting my kids has always been my life’s #1 priority. To expose them to “games” of violence towards other human beings is, in my opinion, the height of parental irresponsibility. For the United States government and the sponsors of the Air Show to aid in the military recruitment of children not only borders on child abuse, it is a violation of law.
It is indeed a desperate state of affairs when our government becomes so irresponsible with its duty to protect its citizens that it condones this violation not only of civil law, but of moral law as well.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower asked, “How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”
I think the answer to his question is: the Virtual Army Experience.
To Rebecca and all those of similar mindsets; clearly you have no concept of the experience of combat.
Much of how I feel personally about the VAE and its true purpose is rooted deeply in the fact that I have experienced war in a way that scars one’s soul forever. The VAE is a blatant recruiting tool and as such is nothing more than a bold-faced lie that no more portrays what it’s like to be a soldier in combat than does any ride in a common amusement park. The VAE is little more than a cheap parlor trick and disrespects the true sacrifices of all combat veterans, living and dead.
I went to Vietnam as a boy, albeit a 24-year-old 1Lt. boy, and came home a much sobered and jaded young man. Because of my Ranger and Airborne training, the Army quite logically put me in command of elite troops with a front-line mission, which exposed me to some of the most horrific things that men can do to one another. Thirty-six years after the fact, I can still see the faces, hear the screams, and feel the fear of close combat. Nothing in life can prepare one for the experience of holding the horribly mangled body of a friend who was whole just a minute earlier, as his life bled away, on the ground around you, while he cried for his mother and there was nothing you could do to save him or ease his pain. Likewise, knowing that I have taken the life of another human being, while staring into his eyes as I thrust a knife into his chest, was a sickening empty gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach that will haunt me for the rest of my life. These are emotions, memories and scars, both physical and mental, that remain with me every single day and I know they will never go away. There was a bond between my men and me that was 100% reciprocal, in every respect, regardless of our diverse backgrounds or races, that transcended rank and possibly even went beyond love. Such a bond can only be forged when people face death together and hold the fate of each other in the palms of their hands, and by the actions they take while defending one another.
I was and never have been ashamed of the uniform I wore, my Purple Heart, my CIB, my training, the unit and the men I served with, or the various decorations I was awarded for valor or service. These things stand on their own and the
dishonorable use of the military by irresponsible and dishonest political leaders in no way diminishes their value to me, because I know in my heart that my men and I performed our duty in as civilized a way as war allows and conducted ourselves with honor.
Therefore, madam, before you demonstrate your ignorance in such a public forum and chastise the men and women who have sacrificed their lives, bodies and mental health so that you may live in a free country, I strongly suggest that you only speak of that which you know and demonstrate a little humility.