Victoria Hungerford
«77»
in Afghanistan. You ask them about their experience. Two were military police, the other a mechanic. They remark with dismay that they didn't see much “action.” “You wanted to kill people?” you ask, genuinely surprised. You remember the horror stories told by your brother during his time in Afghanistan and how he never came back the same. He had changed, was depressed, more distant. “Sand niggers aren't people,” one says. The three of them laugh. You are left stunned, silent. You didn't know how to respond, baffled by the unadulterated racism echoing in your headset. This catches you so far off-guard that you forget you're playing a game and get knifed from behind.26 “Pay attention!” Jim yells at you. You're not winning this game, behind by at least 10 deaths. You know the end is near. You feel as if your death is the tipping point for the enemy team to win. Even though your brain is telling you that the guys have died just as much as you. “So what are you studying?” Dan asks. Here you go, you think, how is a group of military macho men supposed to understand what I am studying? They are just going to mock me, relegate me into a certain category to make it easier for them to understand. But aren't you doing that with them already? 26.
PO LY -
The experience with these ex-military men happens within two fields. One field is the game, where you all play a game with certain rules, regulations, and limitations. Everyone is on an even playing field within the digital interface of the video game. Then there is the political, in which Schmitt argues that the “the specific political distinction…is that between friend and enemy” (26). This binary understanding of the political is much more complicated through the digital interface of the video game. Here I am playing with people I would never want to be friends with or even interact with. On all accounts these people are everything I am not—racist, homophobic, but through the game we are political friends. We have a common enemy that we must find and kill; because of this we must work together. The publicity of the political is thus exemplified within the digital interface of FPS because disagreement may happen among us as a group, but we still must kill others for the simple reason that they are the enemy, and we are digital soldiers.