Chronicles of War

[Furby]

So Rob...what you're saying is that you won't be playing/covering Oklahoma D-Day in the future? Truely is a pity...it's a badass field and Dewayne really does know how to pull it off.

Given your heritage, I can understand how you'd be upset. Being Irish/German/Cherokee/Pawnee myself, it's a little different for me. All I'm saying here are what Dewayne has told me in regards to his reasoning and motivation for D-Day. Obviously, since it's America, you can choose to attend or not attend. Once again, I don't particularly like Dewayne as a person, but I do respect his skill as a big game/scenario producer, and I absolutely adore the field that D-Day is played on. Add in the reasonable FPO price and the fact that I have friends that live in the area, and the past couple of years, it's been inexcusable for me to NOT cover his events.

I remember the article you referenced that Bill wrote...I also remember tearing it apart on my show for its pandering to the politically correct among us. There comes a point where we as a society have to move on. D-Day took place close to 60 years ago. At what point do we move on?

This reminds me of a news story I saw a few weeks ago. The story involved people debating whether or not to restore Aushwitz in Poland. Speaking for myself, the thought of using the site of such a hateful act as a tourist attraction is nauseating. The argument saying to preserve the place so that we never forget doesn't really hold water with me because there's money being made. I suppose that could also be applied to Mr. Convir's motivations as well. The point is, Aushwitz (pardon my spelling) is deteriorating, and I say let it rot. At some point people HAVE to move on, and letting nature reclaim that evil place seems a fitting fate.

As for D-Day, it is after all, paintball. The local media around here treats it as just another event, and the locals are thrilled to death that so many people come to that little corner of the world to fill their stores, hotels, and tax coffers. Contrary to Buddha's supposition, there's no requirement for racial purity, nor do many people care what a person's race is...they're mostly American Indians ("First Nation Americans", for you politically correct types out there).

I dunno...maybe I'm off, or biased like Tyger. At some point we as players and as Americans need to quit carping about who's to be offended or upset. I understand that perception is reality to alot of people, but the fact of the matter is, if the regular media wanted paintball as a sport gone, they'd have whipped the American public into a furor by now. I don't like the SS and Wehrmacht uniforms either, but it's part of that particular event, and believe me, it intensifies the intensity of the game. Would banning SS/Nazi symbols from being publically displayed at the event take away from the event? Probably not. Maybe Dewayne will read this whole thread, and after he gets done beating the crap out of me for my inept explanation of his motivations, perhaps he'll change the rules of his events and ban the display of the symbols that seem to be at the root of this particular controversy.

 

[Buddha 3]

Furby,

You say a lot of things like "we as Americans", but don't forget that some people in this thread are not American. Perhaps that's where the different viewpoints come from. I come from a country that has been occupied by the Germans for 5 years. My grandfather was carried off to Germany and forced to work in a factory that was considered a strategic target by the allies. My other grandparents had Jewish people hiding in their house. The Dutch are a Germanic people, just like the Germans, therefore we were considered their "brethren" which meant that retaliation for acts of resistance were more severe than in any other country in western Europe. When by the end of 1944 most European countries had been liberated, Holland was still occupied. The German forces took almost all food supplies away from the Dutch, in order to feed their own starving population. 25000 people died of starvation in the winter of 44-45, and at that time Holland had a population of only 6 million. To this day my grandparents can only talk about their experiences with tears in their eyes. You come from a country that has not seen the terror of war on it's own soil since the 1800's, for us the occupation is still part of living memory.
If an event like that would be staged here, I can guarantee you that there would be an outrage, and paintball would be knocked back into the realm of an outlaw sport forever. And I'd hate to see that...

I hope the above makes it a little easier to understand why some of us feel the way we do.

 

[SHAG]

Hi,

Tyger you are truely pissing me off. I m sorry but you are. What is the point of all this? Are you looking for attention? Why not give up the BS and just play paintball. Paintball is about having fun for the most part. heck at bigger events I find the event itself is a side show compared to the fact you get to share time with those around you who made the sacrifices to make it to the event.

Do not include your political beliefs that war scenarios are bad and this and that. Enough with having to bring up the holocust up. If I recall correctly, D day was not the day the allieds liberated the camps. It was when the allies tried to gain a foothold in France.

I have played several "war based" games. They were great fun. Why? It was paintball. If anything it's a more detailed big game. There were no political idaologies being fought over. Everyone had fun with less money in thier pockets at the end of the day. So what if someone came in gard true to the event.


So I leave you with this. Enough Tyger. You are ticking more people off with your view. If you are going to retire, then do so. Enough with dragging it out. Enough with trying to steal the spotlight for one last time. Like Mac Arthur said, old soldiers never die they just fade away. Why not just fade away and hear what happened to that Tyger guy or I wonder where he is instead of hearing Thank god that ______ is gone. His views were stupid. What ever you don't sit there and write some silly comback. Probably a scenario about a furry creatures in the woods getting shot at will come about and I know alot of people will be at that one.

Later,
SHAG

 

[JoseDominguez]

Who needs war when you can just get personal? where did that come from? If you don't like a discussion, then don't get involved. I don't remember Tyger getting nasty on the thread.
I happen to think that the wearing of SS paraphenalia is hugely offensive and I'll say that to anyone.
You say"Don't mix up your political beliefs with paintball" this is nothing to do with politics, it's just that I find wearing the uniform of sick, twisted, psychotics offensive.

And if, as you say there are no political ideologies being fought and "the event is just a side show" then why go to all the bother of doing it in the first place? Get back to tygers Aardvarkians, that way you don't offend anyone.

How about we re-enact Mogadishu? or 911? too soon? how long will it be before they aren't offensive anymore?
Say, in the UK they could run the Falklands, we could invite Simon Wesson, he'd really enjoy that. (Horribly injured in a missile attack).

 

[FUna]

Originally posted by JoseDominguez
Yes, but all it takes is for a few of those photos of kids wearing ss uniforms and carrying markers to hit the mainstream-press and we can forget about being taken seriously. That's it, end of story.

What a lot of you forget is this:

Most newbies (especially in the states) get into paintball because they see it as shooting people with guns -- like when kids played "war" when they were little.

Kids and adults alike will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS (did I mention always?) use paintball as a "war game" even if we don't want them to.

In Sevierville, TN, USA there is a militia group that uses paintball to practice for WW3 or the overthrow of the US government (I'm not kidding, they've been thrown off two paintball fields there).

In Nashville, TN, USA there used to be a legitimate paintball field called Cinju Mountain where they had firebases and practiced realistic war games down to actually overrunning each other's firebase and capturing, and subsequently using, the opponents gear. Additionally a single game lasted 8-12 hours and you brought all paint, air, food you needed for the whole day with you. It was about survival and war purely.

I could go on and on but scenario games and/or wargames may be tasteless (in your opinion or mine) but they are not going away. As Tyger said (Look tyger I'm agreeing with you ) scenario games are a FANTASY. They are no different from video games, board games or RPG games about war. Do you play Dungeons and Dragons, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind, Mechwarrior, Axis and Allies, Warhammer (either the original or 70k)???

All those game glorify a fantasy of warfare and are (let me stress this point) no different from paintball scenario games whether they be based on real or ficticious events except in your minds because it is YOUR sport and you don't personally want it in YOUR sport. If you are for getting it out of paintball, you must be for banning all these games and more including a vast majority of top selling video games that have been socially accepted for years.

Over that past now 15 years I've been in paintball...I've seen this argument over the "warfare" image come up and the common thread is "I don't want it in MY sport but I'll play HALO on my X-Box or Delta Force on my PC at home".

Again I repeat, the war-glorifying scenario games, fictitious or based on real events is simple fantasy and no worse, I repeat, no worse than playing D&D or watching Band Of Brothers on TV. Its an escape...a fantasy...a way to live a more exciting life than modern day couch-potato-ism allows.

So get over it. Let other people have their fun.

Now let me end this by saying, I'm not particularly a fan of scenario games or war-games in particular...I'd rather they not be in the sport, but they're here, and aren't going away and going to the occasional one is fun. Hell I'd rather never play paintball in the woods and stick to hyperball and airball fields...but damn PBLI 2002 was a blast and I'll be going there again in 2003.

Cheers all you double-standard holders. Play your war games on your PCs/consoles and bitch about scenario games all you want -- it just makes you a hypocrite.

 

[JoseDominguez]

???????? pointless argument mate, what you do in your own home is up to you, war themed paintball games are very public and it's the image of paintball I'm worried about.
They aren't going to say , he plays halo, ban paintball are they. See me in an SS uniform and it'd be different.

As for:
In Sevierville, TN, USA there is a militia group that uses paintball to practice for WW3 or the overthrow of the US government (I'm not kidding, they've been thrown off two paintball fields there).

Which side of the argument are you on?

 

[Baca Loco]

3 first time posters in this thread

It's all good, kids.

 

[Furby]

Buddha3:

Point noted...I keep forgetting that this particular board is largely european. As for the rest, I have to agree with FUna in large part...taking the scenario/big game side of the sport too seriously (in the context of the story line) leads to arguments like this. It most certainly is escapism, fantasy, whatever you want to call it. Obviously a D-Day scenario wouldn't go over too well in Europe, SS Uniforms, Allied Uniforms or not.

Here in the US, there are a large number of people who go around just looking to be offended, and unfortunately these are the ones that usually end up in public office. To be blunt, Dewayne's games likely won't cause the downfall of the sport here in the US. If the sport were truely under attack (which it isn't), it'd be gone already due to the lack of an industry/player supported lobbying group for congress.

I've only been to Europe once, and that was only for a bit over a week, so I won't pretend to know or understand european attitudes and sensitivities. However, I will say that people like Dewayne Convirs act in their own best interests, and obviously it wouldn't be in his interest to destroy the sport. In the US, we have a much shorter memory than perhaps the rest of the world does. Here, 60 years is more than enough time to maybe use WWII as a backdrop for a game storyline. Sometimes I think the American collective memory is *too* short...less than 6 months after the 9/11 attacks there were people questioning the need to hunt down and either capture or kill the people who masterminded it. I still remember standing in downtown Oslo taking a picture of the US Embassy fortified like a post modern fortress and wondering if things would ever be the same. We'll see, I guess.

 

[JoseDominguez]

I'm talking from the European perspective, it is wholly possible (particularly in the UK) that bad press could destroy paintball.
If you don't think so, then ask some of the handgun target shootingenthusiasts who's sport was taken from them about 15 years ago. (Not that I'm pro-firearm by the way, the fewere there are, the better).

 

[Furby]

Right...I understand that now. But how likely is it that MXS, Dewayne Convir's D-Day or the like would come to the UK for a game? Different places, different people, different games. From an American perspective, this isn't the end of the world. However, I understand now how it could be overseas.

Personally, I'd love to come over and play some 'ball in Europe...I'm trying my DAMNDEST to convince my business partners that we need to play/cover either Toulouse or Joy Masters (I've got a well known weakness for Scandinavian women) just to experience European hospitality, which from what I understand is taken quite a bit more seriously than it is here.

Further more, your explanation on how firearms are perceived stirred the memory banks as well...I remember getting asked by people during my visit to Norway if I owned a handgun(you know us well armed, showdown-at-the-OK-Corral Americans), and the near revulsion when I answered yes, and had at one time had a Carry Concealed Weapon permit. The whole trip was a huge eye opener for me, in more ways than one.