I usually sit down and play a few videogames before I write my articles, today is no exception.

As I sat at the computer trying to figure out what to write about I found myself playing Hearts and FreeCell.  Today, I went through all of my usual games and found that none of them satisfied me.  Then I fired up Battlefield: 1942 with the Desert Combat mod, and went online to one of my favorite servers.  They were playing the “Wake Island” scenario.  In reality, Wake Island is a small coral atoll about 200 miles west of Hawaii and was the site for many battles during World War II.

The US built a landing strip on Wake Island so that they could use it as a base of operations during WWII.  The Japanese attacked Wake Island the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 8, 1941.  The Japanese continued to attack the island until they had captured it. There were more than 120 military and civilian deaths in the battle; the rest of the inhabitants were captured and sent to labor camps.  On October 5, 1943, the US raided the island and began the fight to take it back.  The Japanese admiral in charge, ordered the 98 prison laborers be sent to the north end of the island where they were executed.

I thought that I would write a short article today because of everybody getting ready for the three-day holiday weekend (it is Memorial Day in the States), but I just wanted to leave you with this thought: remember those brave men and women who fought in the wars to protect our freedom and our ability to play videogames because when they died in battle, they didn’t have the option to respawn.

Did you enjoy this article? Please bookmark it onto: