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When the movie Saving Private Ryan came out I talked to my late grandfather about it. He had fought as a Marine in the Pacific theater during WWII and I was curious about the reality of the film. He had made landings in Guam on one of Higgins boats featured in the beginning of the film. I asked if he'd seen the movie and he said bluntly "No, I don't want to see that **** again."

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He explained that he'd walked out of John Wayne movies in the 1950s because he had no interest in reliving the trauma that was war. He'd been lucky to survive the landings, the fighting and the malaria that killed his fellow soldiers. He'd been in the south pacific when the US nuked Japan and he had the opportunity to be on the USS MIssouri for the ceremony of the formal signing of Japanese surrender but he refused. He wanted to get the hell out of there and go home.
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I have nothing against first-person-shooters. I remember seeing kids at a local Comp USA playing Doom when it first came out. I loved playing Duke Nuke'em 3D on my Mac and returned to Castle Wolfenstein 5 years ago. I got a PS2 about 6 months ago since it's so cheap and loved God of War.

I'm conflicted about realistic war games though. It's one thing to kill zombies and monsters in the depths of Hades. It's another to have a realistic simulation of war, an aetheticised, controlled re-enactment of battle.

In looking at the bargain bin at Game Stop I keep coming up with Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, a WWII game set in the south pacific. I could play a marine, like my grandfather, and fight in the jungles of Gudacanal, just like he did. But not like he did, because I'd be sitting at home, in a comfortable chair, with a beer, pretending to be a warrior. I imagine that my grandfather would think I was crazy to pay money and spend time actively pursuing a fake version of the crap he went through.
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Chris Hedge's book "War is a Force that Gives us Meaning" delves into the myths we develop about warfare and the willful ignorance we have of its effects and trauma. Here he writes in 2005 of the war in Iraq:

The vanquished know the essence of war – death. They grasp that war is necrophilia. They see that war is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction. They know how war fosters alienation, leads inevitably to nihilism, and is a turning away from the sanctity and preservation of life. All other narratives about war too easily fall prey to the allure and seductiveness of violence, as well as the attraction of the godlike power that comes with the license to kill with impunity.

...All our knowledge of the war in Iraq has to be viewed as lacking the sweep and depth that will come one day, perhaps years from now, when a small Iraqi boy or girl reaches adulthood and unfolds for us the sad and tragic story of the invasion and bloody occupation of their nation.

I wonder about those children and what they would think of the game "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare". Would they enjoy jumping around bombed out shells of homes, neighborhoods of burned out cars, gunfire and bombs. If they had the chance to sit in a suburban American living room, would they find it pleasurable to play in that virtual environment? Why do we?

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I moved from the Medal of Honor demo at the store and watched a kid playing the new Grand Theft Auto 4. His avatar, Niko Bellic was in Times Square, and had just gotten hit by a compact car. He pulled the driver out of the car and proceeded to kick and stomp on him. Then he left, stole a sports car and sped off to his next mission. I left and walked out into the real Times Square, a little numb as I wandered into the crowd and walked by the scene of his simulated crime.