Gaming Brings Realism to Soldiers' Cultural Training
System aids decision-making skills
By Bill Hess, Herald/Review
March 26, 2009
InVisM founder and president Russel Phelps
FORT HUACHUCA — Today’s young soldiers are ahead of the game when it comes to technology, Lt. Gen. David Valcourt said Wednesday.
And the service must “leverage that 18 years of experience,” he said at the second day of the Culture Summit held on post.
The Army needs to use soldiers interest in video gaming as an advantage, using it as a learning tool when working to understand different cultures, said Valcourt, deputy commanding general of the Training and Doctrine Command.
“We need to get into gaming. This generation (of soldiers) is much different than us,” he said when comparing young GIs with some of the older leaders in the Army.
There couldn’t have been more agreement than what came from Russel Phelps, the CEO of InVisM, whose e-mail signature includes the words “intelligence gaming.” InVisM, a Colorado company, stands for Innovation & Vision Management.
Saying his company is involved in “virtual reality serious gaming,” Phelps said soldiers would rather learn through newer technologies than sit and listen to hours of lecture.
They want to have hands-on connection, and gaming is a way to achieve that, he said.
Soldiers who grew up using computers and other technologies learn faster when they see themselves actively involved in the education process, Phelps said.
The company has taken 50 hours of traditional classroom instruction and turned it into about 10 hours of interactive fast-action movie-like productions. The action involves real people, not avatars or other computer-generated figures. So, Phelps said, the action is much more realistic.
To add to the reality, the actors are former military members or natives from Iraq and Afghanistan, Phelps said. The scripts were written by former GIs and are based on actual incidents America’s armed forces faced while deployed that had good and bad outcomes.
The military members in the videos also were named after men and women who were killed in action in the two countries, a way of honoring and remembering them.
Phelps said it’s added empathy to help a soldier understand the importance of knowing another culture.
“We were honoring those who served by those who have served,” he said.
InVisM partnered with Combat Film Productions, and although the filming was done in the United States, film clips from the two countries, along with Hollywood-type sets and the magic of movie-making, made a place look like Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The object was to create reality,” Phelps said, noting soldiers can spot when something is Hollywood fake.
As scenes are played out, video freeze-frames require a soldier to make a decision as to what should happen.
There are always a number of possible decisions. The video continues based on the decision that’s made.
In a demonstration, one scene involved an Afghan village in which the brother of the village leader was suspected of being a Taliban supporter, which led the soldiers to believe the village leader of being involved, too. Although the village leader claimed his innocence, one of the options in the scenario included taking him into custody. If a soldier decided it would be done right then and there, the village leader would call on his family and other villagers to come to his rescue. That decision led to a firefight in which Americans and Afghans were killed and wounded.
Phelps said the real solution would have been to take the village elder away to talk with him some more so as not to inflame the villagers.
If that had been chosen, the outcome would have been different and would immediately be seen by the soldier viewer.
While the videos are planned for classroom use, Phelps said the long-range goal of the TRADOC Culture Center, which is part of the Intelligence Centerfor whom InVisM is a contractor, is to eventually have the ability for the videos be played on iPod.
That will allow soldiers who are traveling on deployment to study the programs.
Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.