SHOOTERS KILL TROOPS’ OFF-​​HOURS

Just out of high school, thou­sands of miles from friends and par­ents, and iso­lated by lan­guage and cul­ture from the peo­ple around them, young air­men sta­tioned on a U.S. Air Force base in Europe can find life pretty lonely.
But now the military’s fresh faces can get a bit of the com­forts of home — by wast­ing their pals in an online shoot-‘em-up game.
U.S. Air Forces in Europe, or USAFE, is invest­ing about $200,000 into net­worked gam­ing cen­ters at 14 bases scat­tered across the con­ti­nent. All told, more than 100 Microsoft Xbox game con­soles will be pur­chased, giv­ing thou­sands of air­men a famil­iar new option for their down­time.
“Everything is so dif­fer­ent here. So it’s nice to have a taste of what (air­men) are used to — a taste of America,” said David Quinn, who heads the USAFE’s Community Activities branch. “This is a way to get them out of the dorms, to keep them from sit­ting and star­ing at four walls.“
Stars & Stripes had an arti­cle about this a lit­tle while back. My Wired News piece picks up where it left off.

July 31st, 2003 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.