Xbox Warriors

They tried lowering recruitment standards.

Then they offered a $40,000 bonus for five years of active duty.

They even recalled Paul Bandel.

But it wasn't enough.

Now...it's video games.

At the Franklin Mills mall here, past the Gap Outlet and the China Buddha Express, is a $13 million video arcade that the Army hopes will become a model for recruitment in urban areas, where the armed services typically have a hard time attracting recruits.

The Army Experience Center is a fitting counterpart to the retail experience: 14,500 square feet of mostly shoot-’em-up video games and three full-scale simulators, including an AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopter, an armed Humvee and a Black Hawk copter with M4 carbine assault rifles. For those who want to take the experience deeper, the center has 22 recruiters.

How well is it working?

Not well.

But for the Army Experience Center, the results so far have been less than spectacular. Since it opened, about 35 visitors have enlisted. That is slightly below the previous recruitment rate at the five smaller stations, Sergeant Jennings said, at a time when the slumping economy would be expected to drive more people to enlist.

"We’re not at the point where we can say this is an effective strategy," Major Dillard said...

$13 million for 35 recruits. That math kind of sucks. Beyond the apparent failure of the "Experience Center", others feel it is an unethical recruitment tactic.

Jesse Hamilton, a former Army staff sergeant who served in Iraq and is now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War has called the center "very deceiving and very far from realistic."

"You can't simulate the loss when you see people getting killed," said Hamilton...

"It's not very likely you are going to get into a firefight," he said. "The only way to simulate the heat is holding a blow dryer to your face."

Even with 60 personal computers loaded with military video games, 19 Xbox 360 video game controllers and a series of interactive screens describing military bases and career options in great detail some aren't fooled.

At another video console, Graceson George, 29, a graduate student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, led a squad of Army special forces through the battle zones of the game Ghost Recon....

...Mr. George said he did not think the video game accurately conveyed the combat experience.

"In this one, you can die as much as you like, but in real war it’s not possible," he said. "The reality of military service is beyond what you think. Here you can go back and replay, but in real life if you get shot you get shot. So it’s an entertainment, but it makes you think."

No kidding, Mr. George. Life has no reset button.