Quote of the Weekend

This isn't the quote itself, but a friend of mine wrote to me after reading my complaint in this New York Times Magazine article:

Exum emphasized that he is not outraged by Medal of Honor or any other military shooter. But he can’t help, he says, being a little bit bothered by these games. “This is the thing,” he told me. “Point 5 percent of this country actually fights in these conflicts.” Nearly 80,000 Americans are deployed in Afghanistan, Exum said, while 2.2 million played Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live during a single day last fall. “There’s something annoying that most of America experiences the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are actually taking place, through a video game,” he said.

My friend put it better than me:

These will be the first wars in which the civilians always remember where they were on 9-11 but never wondered where a bunch of tough-ass 19 year olds spent the next decade.