Chapter 4: After The Revolution: Game-Informed Training in the U.S. Military

Late in 2008, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Flynn, U.S. Army, realized that his 100-person Transition Team serving in Baghdad was in trouble. Every evening, his soldiers were engaging in violent one-on-one combat. This was taking such a toll that Flynn took desperate measures to preserve his unit’s combat effectiveness. He negotiated, not with a shadowy, elusive enemy, but with his own troops. They finally agreed to stop fighting virtual wars in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six on their game consoles by 2300 so that they would be awake enough to perform real combat patrols the next morning.

Flynn’s (personal communication, 2009) observation that the above behavior is universal addresses this book’s central question, “Do Computer Games Train?” Most American soldiers today, in combat zones or home stations, are learning daily from computer games. Unfortunately, we do not know whether stories, tactics, keyboard skills, or learning strategies learned in a virtual world created to entertain will lead to success in real combat. Thus arises the critical question: Can computer games teach what the military needs to learn?