Comments on Karen Hall's "Combat Entertainment and Citizen Training in the United States"

The part of this article that I found most interesting was on page 8, when Hall discusses the idea of adults joining children's war play. She gives one example of burying toys in the backyard after they have been involved in war play. Hall claims, "Burying toys killed in action gives adults and children the opportunity to discuss the realities of war...Destruction is not followed by replay but instead by a recognition of loss". This idea is something that I had never heard of before. I never really played war games when I was younger, so I do not know much about how they are played, but I am pretty sure that most children do not have a ritual like this that involves burying their toys after they are done playing with them. However, in the context of war play, it does make sense and remain consistent with the game: if a soldier is killed, the game and the soldiers cannot break character just for your toy. Although I would imagine children would be very reluctant to bury their toys and never play with them again, this is a very direct message to children that war is not a game, and that there are serious losses in war (even more serious than never playing with that toy again). This idea reminds me a lot of war movies, and the documentary we watched and the discussion we had of war movies. As real as war movies may look, and how ever scrutinized a film may be by the Pentagon to ensure accuracy, we still know that the movie is fake because we know the actors, and we know they are not dead. Perhaps if we saw a war movie in which Matt Damon's character died and then Matt Damon never made a movie ever again, we may be able to take the casualty of war in film more seriously. Just like in war play with children's toys, films allow people to always know that the war they are watching or playing is not real, and does not have real consequences. Hall also makes the connection between children's war games and film in her article: "Re-enacting the scenes children view in other media serves to equate play with collecting. Invention and inquiry are drained from children's play when collecting becomes the primary activity their toys invite. Toy sets sold seperately or as modular universes such as Star Wars, Spinal Zone figures and vehicles, Lego military sets and GI Joe dolls train children's desires toward acquring objects rather than seeking out toys that augment creative activity, further strengthening the influence media narratives have in children's lives". Hall points out the connection between all forms of media, and how one form of media only perpetuates the ideas of another, as with film and toys. The idea of burying military toys after they have been killed in battle is an efficient way to cut off one form of media from glorifying war, and an appropriate way to teach children about the unseen part of war.