Let’s bring the kids to ‘Army World’?

August 8, 2006

I know kids frequently like to play with toy guns and war-themed video games, but there’s something about an Army theme-park that seems over the top. (thanks to reader T.L. for the tip)

The Army is considering a proposal to allow a private developer to build a military-themed park that would include Cobra Gunship rides and bars including a “1st Division Lounge.” […]

Universal City Property Management III, of Orlando, Florida, submitted the unsolicited proposal for the theme park last year.

“You can command the latest M-1 tank, feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall, fly a Cobra Gunship or defend your B-17 as a waist gunner,” according to the proposal, which was obtained by The Washington Post.

Nothing like brining the kids out for a day at the theme-park — where they can experience basic training.

According the WaPo, the Florida developer has faced some fierce opposition from local officials. But as it turns out, the decision isn’t exactly up to them.

Fairfax officials, who have no say over the Army’s decision because the site is federal property, said they are worried about an entertainment complex’s impact on traffic.

Supervisor T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee) was so upset after hearing about the Universal City proposal last year that he threw company representatives out of his office. He said he had no interest in turning a military history museum into “Disney on Rolling Road.” After the meeting, he said, he thought the entertainment concept for the Army museum was dead.

But last week, the Army told Kauffman and other Fairfax officials that it intended to move the [new Army] museum from the Fort Belvoir entrance to the Engineer Proving Ground a few miles from the post because it needs to increase the size of the complex from 75 acres to 125, which Kauffman said is a prelude to an entertainment complex.

An Army spokesman, in response to written questions, said the Army is studying what it calls “a visitor destination concept” for the museum but did not elaborate.

I know Fairfax County, Va., and there’s simply no way the area can absorb an estimated 3 million visitors a year, which is what developers estimate for the Army theme-park.

But there’s also the question of taste. Particularly in a time of war, combat is a serious matter, not an amusement-park simulation. Those who are brave enough to wear the uniform and put their lives on the line aren’t characters in some kind children’s entertainment show.

I’m no expert, but theme-parks are about amusement, leisure, and fantasy. Is it me, or does military service not fit in with this description at all?

How else to find fodder for corporatist wars? Get ’em while their young and stupid and make it fun. I wonder what the “enemy” characters will look like.

Certainly the current Army commercials have lost their allure with the “parents” finding new respect for their newly enlisted sons and sons announcing to skeptical moms that they’ve found a way to afford college. I always hit the mute button for those. Now, how to mute the rest of these god-forsaken war strategies…?

  • This, I suspect, is another case of the Republican’ts not being able to keep control of an issue when someone waves money under their nose.

    Moving everybody in Northern Virginia who has anything to do with the U.S. Military or the Intelligence Community into Fort Belvoir is enough of a strain on the roads down there. Building a hotel near the Army Museum that can cater to transient military families and TDY government personnel and contractors is a fine idea. Building a ‘theme park’ is a dumb idea. Unless the opponents are overblowing what really has been proposed, clearly someone has, once again, lost control at the Pentagon. Not a surprise, but disappointing anyway.

  • But think, Jonah and the rest of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders will be able to say that they now know that war is, indeed, heck.

    – Battle lines will be drawn as Jonah fiercely butts in line before a group of 10 year olds waiting to “command the latest M-1 tank” again and again.

    – Jeff at Proteinwisdom will be able to “defend your [blog] as a waist gunner”

    – Hindrocket will be able to let loose a volley of virtual rocketfire as he “fl[ies] a Cobra Gunship”

    Oh, the possibilities are endless…

  • We may have to differ. During the Koren War, when I was ten, my Dad supervised off-base housing for the military around Camp Roberts CA (as he had during WWII). I used to ride out to Camp Roberts to shine shoes; I also sold the Paso Robles Press to soldiers in the bars and card rooms in my hometown of Paso Robles. My Dad took my younger brother and me out to Hunter Liggett Military Reservation (attached to Camp Roberts) to see “war games” (on or around Memorial Day, I think).

    From a tiny officers’ and guests’ grandstand we watched tanks and howitzers blasting hillside and pillboxes, felt the intense heat of flamethrowers (hundreds of feet away from us, aimed the other way) rising up inside the legs of our jeans, watched barrels of nails being blasted to bits by the back-draft of bazookas, etc. After they got done shooting we rode in the tanks (that area gets to be 115° – inside the tanks was much hotter), “steering” by using our feet to tap the drivers shoulders.

    I am not a military person, nor did I come from a military family (my dad was a government bureaucrat during the war). I wore the uniform for all of one day, when I was forced to sign up for ROTC at 17, at the University of San Francisco; when they realized I was blind as a bat they took back the uniform. I even tried to sign up officially and “get it over with” before pursuing college further, to no avail.

    Maybe the military has changed since then. Maybe kids have changed since then. Maybe adult’s ideas of “political correctness” trump kids’ naive sense fun. But my brother and I loved this grown-up version of “playing soldier”. My brother actually wound up as an anchor-clanker (Navy jet mechanic). My best friends today is a retired Marine. I’m 100% anti-war, especially the current one. I don’t think the “theme park” hurt me one bit.

  • Oh, and future Republican politicians can use their visit to the themepark as proof of military service.

  • They’re going to have to go after kids to get them used to the idea of serving if things keep up the way they are. There will be a draft one of these days.

    My local mall sometimes plays host to Marines trying to recruit people. They have a big wall with holes in it that they put up, and ask young men to try to throw a football through the holes, then ask them about signing up. And they even give the ball to younger kids, who are usually more interested in it than the teenagers are. I don’t begrudge them their recruitment drives – they’re welcome to do so as far as I’m concerned.

    But the thing that creeps me out a little is a 7-foot tall inflatable costume that someone wears around the mall, waving at people. Clearly they’re not targetting teenagers with this guy. My kids (6 and 4 yrs old) love him and wave back.

  • Sorry for so many posts on this. But, Ed, remember–your visit was back in the days when there was a draft for wars that, rightly or wrongly, were considered unavoidable. Today, we’ve got the all volunteer army for trumped up wars of choice, like Iraq. Sappy commercials and college money are apparently not enough to stimulate enough people to sacrifice life and limb. It’s a long shot, but the “war is fun” strategy just might supply more canon fodder.

  • Okay, I would put on a fake mustache and visit this theme park, but I wouldn’t want my kids any where near it. War is adults-only entertainment.

  • Has anyone read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card? Maybe these “rides” will let the children control real weaponry in Bush’s Neverending War.

    I hope they get to shout out “air assault” while playing.

  • I still favor the attitude of most European nations: universal military service, with lots of non-military options. I favor it mainly because it gets kids out from under direct control of, or reliance on, their parents, who have already had 18 years to succeed or fail with them. Few Europeans take such military service seriously, and the armies of European nations know they must accommodate a certain amount of lack of seriousness. But it seems to me those nations have a saner approach to military matters than we do. Like so much in black-or-white America, military here is either adored or hated. It’s a sign of our national stupidity imho.

  • ACK—this is like some evil genetics scientist fusing a Six Flags park to the Hitler Youth.

    “Hitleryungen Uber Virginia?”

  • FWIW and slightly off topic: this is the anniversary (1945) of Harry Truman’s signing the United Nations into existence. It’s also the anniversary (1974) of Richard Nixon’s resignation from office.

  • actually this sounds pretty cool, although i doubt the park will feature attraction on the other side of war, such as the Wear a Prosthetic Dress Up Studio and the That’s Just a Car’s Backfire PTSD House.

  • I’m down as long as the kids and I can “simulate” tortures, killings, and rapes of terrorists.

    They can get Mexicans to build it and Arabs to run it, fun for all. Anyone gets out of line, bam, into the “simulation” room for a day.

  • Hey kids!!

    25 mile road marches with a 50 pound rucksack! UPHILL!!

    Hours of PT fun, including push-ups, sit-ups, flutter-kicks, mountain-climbers, crunches, and running until you collapse!!

    Three months of heat exhaustion and prickly heat in the lovely Republic of Panama!!

    Lose part of your hearing from continuously firing an 81mm mortar!!!

    POST-TRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER!!!

    Have to decide in half a second if the hazy image of the person in front of you is an Iraqi insurgent with an AKM rifle, or a kid with a stick, then live with the consequences of your action for the rest of your life!!

    Meals Ready to Eat, 3 times a day for 3 weeks straight!! And sometimes you have time to warm them up!!

  • I like the idea of an army theme park — tanks and all. And I like 2Manchu’s “reality-based” army experience. So, I agree with Ed that the ideal “reality show” is — and always has been — universal military service. I know lots of people disagree, but military discipline after high school, travel, hardass work, and learning to work with others are positives that are lacking these days.

    We can all come up with indictments of war and the military, but there are times when military action is necessary. And for the times it isn’t, some firsthand experience with the effect of weapons can give the nation less enthusiasm for war than we had in 2003.

    (2manchu forgot to mention grease pits. And learning first aid for a sucking chest wound.)

  • Having given this Army theme park more thought, I think we could save money by cancelling plans for its construction. Instead, we can simply charge admission to Iraq. (Kids under 12 free with a Republican parent.)

  • I agree with Ed that the ideal “reality show” is — and always has been — universal military service. I know lots of people disagree, but military discipline after high school, travel, hardass work, and learning to work with others are positives that are lacking these days.

    I have to say, when I look back on my 4 years in the blue machine, that I agree with that statement. I’ll also say that it took me all of one night and the next morning after arrival at NTC San Diego to know that I was not “career material” as I had thought I was, and that the best day of service was the day I saw the Marine gate guard at Treasure Island getting smaller and smaller in the taxicab’s rearview mirror as I sped off to Oakland Airport to fly home and ditch my uniform forever.

    But in point of fact I was a kid bored stiff by 12 years of public school, who graduated 125 from the bottom of a class of 950, who after the Navy was a self-disciplined self-starter who ended up on the Dean’s List every term through a Master’s Degree, and who has survived 30 years as a self employed freelancer because of the self-discipline I learned back then, who has always been very certain since then that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. And have. I wouldn’t do it again for $10 million, and I wouldn’t take $50 million for what I learned, the good and the bad.

    And my youngest stepson, who was also pretty directionless, astounded me 15 years ago by saying he was joining up, and after 3 years in the infantry he came back with a whole new life view and set of abilities. That stuff does work. (And both he and I learned the sound of the bullet that missed,which has been equally important to both of us)

    To me, the theme park is a bit more of the same thing I used to get going out to Lowry AFB in Denver every Armed Forces Day to watch the airshow. I’d agree it’s not a big deal, but I’d also argue it’s a waste of money, and that local government guy is entirely right about it being a pain in the ass for local development. So I’d kill it if I could, but not for being anti-military, just anti-stupidity. Don’t they already have a problem with not enough electricity there at Ft. Belvoir for the NSA????

  • Ali,

    Almost forgot. Thanks.

    Kids could also learn to treat for shock for someone with a bullet wound in the stomach. FUN FUN!!!

    And best of all, learn just how important protective masks are, by getting shoved into a sealed building full of tear gas and burning cardboard, then taking your mask off and reciting your 3 general orders!!!

    Oh, boy, it’s going to be great!!

  • Will there be a Gitmoland? Vietnam Jungle river ride? A D-Day Jungle Gym and climbing wall where plastic body’s are arranged like a ladder and you have to crawl up them to throw your satchel charge in the bunker atop the cliff?

    Yes playing war is fun. Yes the Army is on the cutting edge of technology. Yes people like realistic simulations. On the other hand these is something really creepy and sad about this.

    I wonder if they will have Gay Day at Army World?

  • “Oh boy mom, dad, let’s go kill some people at Armyland”

    “Oh Yes little Timmy and in a few years you can go to Iraq and kill some real people. Won’t that be fun?”

  • Thanks for that link, 2manchu.

    Duty in Iraq must be absolutely horrible. It seems there is very little soldiers can do to fight back — which may account for some of the violent and criminal crack-ups. The poor suckers are just targets who have been given a hazy after-the-fact mission and rules of engagement that leave them almost defenseless.

    The big story that has been missed for the most part is the astounding number of wounded and the severity of their wounds (along with the Bush duplicity in “supporting the troops.”) As most of us know, many, many of those wounded would be dead in previous wars (and many may wish they were). That means the actual American death toll would be much greater by now.

  • Funny that the word ‘bringing’ was mistyped, accidently making it ‘brining,’ which is more appropriate.

    “Nothing like brining the kids out for a day at the theme-park — where they can experience basic training.”

    Take out the phrase “out for a day” and it makes perfect sense.

    Brining is what you do to a turkey before you bake it. You soak the bird in a saline solution containing various spices and herbs in order to infuse it with flavor as wells as moisture. It seems appropriate to the story. Infuse the children with the mindset of warfare so they will be ready for their turn when its time for them to guard the Green Zone outside Tehran… err… Baghdad. I mean, really, it makes a lot of sense. It’s SO much more difficult to brainwash someone after they’ve developed independent thoughts than before. Better yet, deny them proper education so they don’t even have THE ABILITY to form their own thoughts. That’s much more effective.

  • The Washington Post has a story that the Army has rejected the theme park proposal, but will do considerable development.

    Army Shuns ‘Theme Park’ Proposal

    The Army yesterday distanced itself from a proposal to turn a planned Army history museum at Fort Belvoir into what critics call a military theme park, calling a pitch from a former Universal Studios executive “dead on arrival.”

  • “Don’t they already have a problem with not enough electricity there at Ft. Belvoir for the NSA?” – Tom Cleaver

    Nope, NSA is in Maryland, Fort Belvoir is in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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