Military Themepark: The Newest Army Recruiting Tool
Did you see the story being floated that the U.S. Army is considering outsourcing Fort Belvoir as a propaganda tool? According to the Washington Post, the idea is to build a military theme park at the suburban Virginia fort, which is located just across the Potomac from that other theme park, Washington, DC.
The Army apparently is rationalizing the theme park concept as a device to help pay the costs of the Army museum already planned for Ft. Belvoir. And they're entertaining proposals from a Florida developer who imagines a Disney-like approach to the opportunity. The Post quotes from the proposal, "You can command the latest M-1 tank, feel the rush of a paratrooper freefall, fly a Cobra Gunship or defend your B-17 as a waist gunner."
What a spectacular recruiting device a military theme park might seem to the Pentagon brass, especially at a time when the Army is facing serious problems meeting its quotas for new soldiers. And what neat diversion at a time when the number of Army and other U.S. military casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq is approaching the total killed during the September 11 attacks.
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