Sometimes video games, especially shooters, get a bad rap from people. It’s been said that they cause children to become more violent, but perhaps that’s just bad parenting.
Politicians also like to blame video games for increased violence among young people. Again, if their parents had taught them the difference between real life and online life, perhaps they wouldn’t have become so violent.
Anyways, John Duttenhofer is a 24-year-old guy that just loved playing some Call Of Duty. He actually played up to 13 hours a day sometimes and it seems that that knowledge helped him in the real world too. (SEE MOM! VIDEO GAMES DO HELP YOU IN REAL LIFE!)
He went to Syria back in April to fight with the Kurdish people. What was his previous occupation? He was a customer service representative at a software company. While in Syria he was fighting alongside the YPG, or the Kurdish People’s Protection Units.
So what made Duttenhofer want to serve over in Syria? His close friend, Jac Holmes, 24 who was also an IT worker was killed in an explosion that was chalked up to ISIS back in October.
Duttenhofer recently returned to the United States, mainly Colorado and spoke about his time over-siege. During the day it seems that he would nerd it up and play Dungeons and Dragons. But by night, he was wielding an AK47 with a unit of snipers that were Kurdish soldiers.
He also attributed his knowledge of practical skills and what types of weapons are used in actual war to his hours of Call Of Duty. The guys over at Activision need to hire this dude to give a testimonial!
He went onto say:
“I decided to go to Syria after I saw reports about what ISIS were doing.
I thought it was pretty f*cked up.
My mom tried to persuade me to stay but she knew that fighting me would just make me go more rushed and unprepared.
When I told one of my best friends he was just like, ‘Hell yeah, go do it,’ and said it sounded amazing.
On one hand, I selfishly wanted to fight ISIS. On the other I wanted to be a part of something that was historical and groundbreaking.
I wasn’t scared of dying or anything like that.
Video games prepared me in a way for knowing strategies and how not to get killed, like how to use cover and not to stand in the open.”
He concluded that:
“I don’t think you can really draw a comparison between the mental state of mind of playing a game and going out and potentially losing your life.
In a game you will get shot and you quickly learn if you are killed, but in real life you just die.”
Well that is true, great insight from Duttenhofer…
Now Duttenhofer is back home in Colorado and is getting acclimated back to normal civilian life. Would you ever go out and fight ISIS like this guy did?!
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