page 4 The Fourth Wall Soldier from page 3 centuries. To think that we’re going to step in and stop them, it’s kind of crazy.” Following that I asked if Jaha found the process of becoming a civilian again difficult? Jaha said, “It’s totally difficult. The main thing is the camaraderie, that’s what I miss... To protect each other, to care about each other. It’s like a family. It’s not about individuals, really. In the civilian process, it’s a lot more individuality, especially how we talk about in class, how technology has burrowed us away from each other, pretty much. That’s the way I feel. That’s why I like talking to people, and I like being around people.” “Another thing, when I got back, the anger was kind of bad because you’re in a war zone. You Editorial: Gamer’s By Gregory Reed Features Editor I am a gamer. Run in terror because I walk among you. Hide your children! Mothers don’t let me look your way. Because, apparently, I am a deviant. I recently purchased the best RPG (role-playing game) I’ve played in a long time: Mass Effect. In the game you can have digital sex. Hurray, my life is complete. My dreams of having sex in a digital format have finally been completed. I can die happy. But, Fox News doesn’t think digital sex is such a hot idea. First, on a program called ‘Live Desk’ a 6-7 minute segment is devoted to the child-ruining video game Mass Effect. 1know, I know why should I call out Fox News, a reputed source of fair and balanced reporting. Why? Ino longer will be quiet when there is no accountability. I must play a just hand in a world of forum-trawlers, who speak in tongues of bad grammar and poor word choice. Fox News’s program bombarding see bombs and dead people, and stuff blowing up, and all kinds of stuff happening.” “Especially driving because when I was in Iraq, you drive as fast as you can possibly drive, and you just get away from everything because you don’t want to be blown up. So, you have to learn how to drive again, like a normal person, I guess you might say. You have to learn that these intense emotions, you have to take them by your own hands, and be a human being about it, and you can’t treat people like that every day, with all that anger, and with all that hate.” “Everyone’s experiences are different. You have the Combat Arms ranks in the Army, and you have the people that are support. The people that are support aren’t directly in combat every day. The Combat Arms people, they’re in combat, for the most part, every day. So everybody’s experiences are going to be different. You’ve got to be a human about it, and just love your fellow person. I think you can go to Iraq with the intentions of justkilling everyone. I just wanted to help people. Help move things along the best that I could.” When asked if there is hope for the conflict in Iraq, and .in the Middle East? Jaha responded, “I hope so. When people are stripped of everything, all that’s pretty much left is hope. I hope that these people can live normal lives, but what are you going to do, destroy their religion, because that’s the, main thing that they use as an excuse to attack us. Don’t make the soldiers that died in that country die for nothing. Why pull out now? We’ve already been there too long. There needs to be some kind of solution. It’s like the craziest thing in the world, what solution? I’ve talked to a lot of people, and they say, “Just kill them all.” That’s inhumane, just murder everyone, and then just leave the country. You don’t go help a country and then just leave them. Eventually, they’re going to get pushed down again, so you can’t do that. It’s going to end up being a hardship tour. We’re going to have to rotate through there.” Jaha went on to say, “That was the main reason I got out. When I left, I talked to... the contractor that brings all our equipment and just signed a ten year contract. How are they talking about moving out of Iraq when this contractor just signed a ten year contract back in 2006? There’s no way for us to pull out. We could pull out the bulk of our forces, but there still has to be some combat reaction team that, when that problem arises again, they’re going to have to run in there and fix everything again.” Then finished by adding, “It’s just going to become another Korea, basically. If we pulled our forces out of Korea, think about it, North Korea would just slide down and just take them all out. Same thing in Iraq. If we pull out of Iraq, Iran would come down, Syria would come down, everybody would just come down, Afghanistan would probably push up. Whoever wants to take. We know it’s basically Iran that wants Iraq, because that was part of Persia, and the Iraqis have family members in Iran, and the Iranians have family members in Iraq, so they want to be unified. You have to take over every country in the Middle East to make a problem solved. You have to go take over Syria, you have to go take over Iran, you have to go take over Saudi Arabia.” the game is filled with so many mistakes I can’t fathom why people watch the channel to begin with. Reporting and Journalism, once thought to be reputed crafts, have been tossed down a latrine like so much fecal matter. In the segment it is mentioned by the host that there is full graphic nudity depicted in the game. Nay, you get ‘side-boob’ and good view of some digital booty. But, I’ve seen worse; if nudity is really considered that harmful, on MTV, the OC, Family Guy, Reno shows that air on the Fox Network. At least, I put my bias out there. Also, without dwelling on it too much, the game expert on the show (for the first half of the segment, the second half, with the desk panel had no such ‘balance’) did an admirable job of not interrupting the bimbo, and I say that with full intention, when she opened her mouth and spewed un- researched lies. However, the gaming expert who had actually played the critically heralded game had no such luck. Anytime he would make a point, or at least try, he would be cut away from and cut- off at the syllable. Real cute, Fox, real cute. Tell me again that the ERSB isn’t respected by Congress and the Game Development community. followed by all regulated retailers (which by law are all of them) isn’t enough. And finally tell me this; please do, that you wouldn’t lie to spark controversy just like this. At the end of the day Fox, and its billions of dollars, won’t get hurt. We do. Not as just gamers, but as consumers and for that matter, Americans as a whole: That’s where the real problem at the heart of this message lies in: accountability. There are some, in the myriad of online forums, who ran to the aid ‘expert’ on the show. They decried those who would criticize the pretty little self-help author, who just wanted to promote her book. Someone decided to call everyone who bashed this author naive, considering that Fox probably told her the lies(instead of research which real authors typically know how to do) and what to say (instead of being a real expert), and thusly she should not be blamed for her actions. We live in a sad age. We live in an age where people are no longer accountable for their words. And it makes this writer sick. I propose that, if only time travel were possible, we go back to the Nuremburg trials and ask the prosecuted, “Did you only perpetuate the lies and kill, maim the Jews because the higher ups who paid you said to?” And if they say “Yes” we say, “Then you are innocent.” That way in our new altered future it would be much easier to justify watching network news. Because instead of video games desensitizing us to violence. We have been desensitized to stupidity.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers