With a pathetic predictability, FOX News has become one of the first news outlets to find a grieving mother to attack the newMedal of Honorand its multiplayer mode where gamers can step into the shoes of the Taliban. I bet FOX couldn’t believe its luck.
To be fair toFOX, the guyhosting the segmentwasn’t too bad, but their guest definitely feels thatMedal of Honorneeds to be pulled because of her own personal investment in the situation.
“War is not a game, period,” says Karen Meredith, one of those mothers who lost a son in Iraq and now thinks she is the authority on everything to do with war. “The fact that they’ve already done games about World War 2 … that’s far removed from our current history, people aren’t dying in World War 2 any more.
“Right now, we’re going into a really, really, bad time in Afghanistan. We’ve just come off of the worst month of casualties in the whole war. This game is going to be released in October, so families that are burying their children are going to be seeing this … It’s disrespectful.
“My son didn’t get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I have to deal with that every day. There’s 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day.”
I totally understand that Meredith might not want to play a game set in a war where her son was killed. But then, of course, she doesn’thaveto play it. Her son made a decision to become a soldier and put his life on the line, just as other adults have the decision to play what games they like. No, war is not a game … but gamesaboutwar … theyaregames. Nobody made Meredith’s son become a soldier just like nobody will make Meredith buyMedal of Honor.
