The Virtual Life of Fizzy Oceans (37 page)

The final attack comes sooner than expected—and wider, too! Two hundred and fifty rebel cannons unleash their fury on the Union forces, causing mayhem and doom. General Longstreet and General A.P. Hill follow up the artillery attack with thousands in the front line, and countless reserves behind them. Union General Howard issues a command for his men to lie down, and for the batteries of cannon to cease firing. Apparently, the Confederates believe they have silenced the Union troops, and charge. Still, the cannons remain silent, and the infantrymen hold their positions without firing. Not until the Confederate forces are so close as to see the determined expressions on their faces does the entire infantry corps spring up and discharge a rain of steely death. This is face-to-face, fire-in-the-eyes, to the death, cold steel combat.

The final, desperate Confederate charge comes at four o’clock in the afternoon. Gathering all their strength, the Confederates mean to wipe out Union resistance once and for all.

The Rebel line stretches miles to the left, in magnificent array, Picket’s division of General Longstreet’s corps the strongest of any and at the front. The rebels hold back until they reach the Emmitsburg road, then open fire with ferocity. Again, the Union defenders are ordered to hold their fire. The Rebels—three lines deep—come into point black range. Then, finally, the order is given, and eighteen thousand guns unleash a rush of leaden death. The frontline falters, but a second moves into place. The Union resisters are not up to the assault.

Up to the rifle pits and over the barricades, the momentum of their charge carries them onward. The Union line is pushed behind the big guns as the Confederate attackers bayonet the gunners and raise their flag over the captured artillery. But in their zeal, the Confederates have penetrated to a fatal point, and a storm of grape and canister tears its way from man to man, marking its track with corpses all along their line. “They have exposed themselves to the guns on the western slope of Cemetery Hill,” Sid tells me. “And that exposure has sealed their fate!”

Over the fields, the escaped remnants of the charging lines fall back—the battle is over, a fruitless sacrifice.

“OMG!” I say breathlessly to Sid. “I had no idea…”

“Such atrocities are better forgotten, perhaps,” he consoles. Then he reconsiders: “No, they should never be forgotten,” he says. “Because if we allow ourselves to forget them, we become vulnerable to repeating them. As history has shown…”

“It almost meant the end of America,” I observe.

“If it were not for the resolution of President Lincoln, it well might have meant the end,” Sid affirms.

“How could they do such a thing?” I ask, bewildered.

“This is what can happen when a culture becomes fractured along ideological lines,” he says.

“Do you think it could happen again?” I ask.

“I’m sorry to say, Fizzy Oceans, it
always
happens again.”

“Let’s get out of here, Sid. I’m feeling sick to my stomach.”

“Wait!” Sid implores. “I have something else I want to show you.”

“Does it involve guns and cannons and dying people?” I ask wearily.

“It does and it doesn’t,” he says. “Come along now. And trust me. If you want to really understand war, this is something you
should
see.”

Whoosh
…

Sid furnishes me with the coordinates to a place in Virtual Philadelphia. The REP into which we transfer was built and is maintained by the U.S. Army.

“In 2008,” Sid tells me, “the U.S. Army closed five recruiting centers in Philadelphia and replaced them with this thirteen-million-dollar, fourteen thousand, five hundred square foot Army Experience Center.”

What lies before me is similar to any vast gaming parlor, or more specifically the now famous Apple Store, because that is what this placed was partially modeled after. Here kids, thirteen and up, come to play on X-boxes and PC gaming stations, for free. The recruitment officer explains to boys barely out of adolescence, “These are simulated rifles; they are not real rifles.” Watching the boys playing at the consoles, I say, ‘Thank God for that!’ because these boys play the war games with both zeal and cunning. Recruiters circulate among the contestants, giving not only gaming advice, but also less than subtle suggestions that in just a few years they could be experiencing the real thing.

“Have you signed up for one of our tournaments?” asks a recruiter.

“I signed up for two,” a young boy answers.

Major Harry X. Dullwit, Jr. explains to us that, “Video games are never going to replicate the real thing. This is just a sampling experience, to pique interest and encourage young men to learn more about what we do.”

“These are simulated rifles; they are not real rifles…”

“We have what young Americans want and like,” says Captain Jeremy Archer. “They like video games, and that’s why we’re here.”

“Did you sign up for one of our tournaments?”

“These are simulated rifles; they are not real rifles…”

And next to the gaming stations are life-size simulators featuring war machines such as Humvees and helicopters. Private Chuck Norgate says, “I came here to play video games, but after a few days I knew I had to do more than just play games. So I talked with the recruiters and signed up for the Army.”

“Have you signed up for one of our tournaments?”

Suddenly, a group of protesters enters the center. With signs held high they chant, “Shame, shame, shame, war is not a game!”

Which I know all-too-well after the past three days at Gettysburg.

Sarah Klein tells us, “My thirteen-year-old boy loves video games, but this is nothing but a recruitment tool used by the military.”

“Please push the re-set button.”

A moment later security personnel move in and begin arresting the demonstrators.

‘Cyber-killing is not child’s play!’ reads one sign. It is confiscated by the police and immediately crushed.

Says Major Dullwit: “Kids are smart enough to understand the difference between virtual reality and Iraq.”

“Have you signed up for one of our tournaments? Please push the re-set button.”

Of course I know very well that the proverbial line between the physical world and the virtual world is a thin one. I’m sure that after spending time in VL, you also know this to be true. My question to Sid is this: “Do these kids
really
know it, too?”

“Please press the re-set button.”

The next place Sid has decided I need to see to round out my exploration of war is another cyber-center, this one in the Nevada desert. He furnishes me some highly classified coordinates, and I engage my transfer device.

Whoosh
…

At an unnamed flight control center soldiers dressed in battle fatigues enter an air-conditioned computer lab to pilot drone aircraft thousands of miles away. Sid poses the question, “What does it mean, psychologically, to wage war where one side is on a physical battlefield, and the other is on a virtual one?”

On a monitor a drone approaches its target in Iraq, seven thousand, five hundred miles away from where the ‘pilot’ controls it. A moment later, the target, a single male, is spotted on a rooftop. The ‘pilot’ has been monitoring his movements from a satellite camera all day, most of which the ‘target’ has spent on a playground playing soccer with children. But now he has been spotted and isolated on the rooftop. Why is he there? Undetermined. What is he doing? Undetermined. The decision is made. The ‘pilot’ centers the ‘target’ in his crosshairs. He counts down, and then squeezes a trigger. An explosion occurs on screen. When the smoke clears, the target is no longer there, nor is the building.

Sid tells me, “The number of drones has multiplied in recent years and the Pentagon is clamoring for more. These planes are extremely precise, as you can see, and there is no cost in human life—at least not on one side…”

“The biggest problem,” one of the pilots tells me, “is a feeling of detachment from the aircraft.”

What? I can hardly believe what I am hearing.

“It’s just a three dimensional problem,” he continues.

And I’m worried about sensuality loss in VL?

Says Captain Archer: “We had intel that there was a ‘bad guy’ riding around on a motorcycle. We located him by virtual reconnaissance, and sure enough, we found him at a meeting of ‘bad people’.” (I added the single quotes; I thought I’d better tell you that.)

Real live aircraft; real live mission; and real live bombs. Once a drone pilot steps into the GCS, he is then immersed in the theatre (figuratively and literally). Once he deploys his payload, he sees the bomb going into a building, he sees the explosion, but he cannot see the aftermath.
He can never see the aftermath
… At the end of his shift, he leaves the control center and drives his air-conditioned, army-issued car to his suburban home in Las Vegas where he has dinner with his wife (like any other businessman or tradesman) then helps his children with their homework.

All in a day’s work…

Crisis… What crisis?

Art, money, religion and war: I have studied each in some detail now, met with brilliant and influential people—even some who actually took part in PL historical events—and what have I learned?

I have come to the conclusion that each of these influential ideas—whether a concept, a discipline, or a commodity, and whether noble or ignoble—is highly political. That’s right! Which art is accepted and which is rejected: largely political. Whether money is real (like gold) or fabricated, like the bucks that Sharky Overbite threw into the air that nobody seemed to want anymore, or even like the greenshoots in my VL account, it’s value is determined by consent or agreement: politics. Is religion political, too? You bet! It is probably the most political of all, even including war. No doubt Jesus was a pretty righteous dude, but he got the political shaft—big time! (Believe me, the cross was no joke, and we each have to carry it sooner or later.) Gandhi got it in the seat, too. So did the Dalai Llama. And what about war? War is certainly political, though it is seldom fought over ideology; rather it is almost always economic, in one sense or another. Even the first American Civil War was fought largely for economic solvency. Ideas and ideals always masquerade as war’s cause, but behind the scenes the politicos pull the strings, and also reap the spoils. In war, greed goes giddy even as the lizard darts its tongue at its prey—all humanity! I wouldn’t steer you wrong here: I know these things to be true.

What crisis, you ask?
What crisis
?

Well, let me put it this way: if I can just get up off the concrete and wash all the fish guts away, I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. Just fine!