In a strategic move, the US Army has hired soldiers to play Call Of Duty in their very own eSports team.
The soldier is 30-year-old Oklahoma native, Sgt. 1st Class Joshua David, a Green Beret who can speak in two Arabic dialects and handle a Special force attack dog. He has been recruited to the US Armies Esports team to play video games for hours on end.
David says he started his gaming career with Nintendo-64 with titles like “Perfect Dark” and “Golden Eye”, and then made his way to the Halo series which was a revelation for him and he became “obsessed” with the ‘Halo Combat evolved’ on Xbox. When ‘Halo 2’ came out he “chased “ that too. David had this to say about when the third ‘Halo’ came out. “When ‘Halo 3’ came out, that’s when I figured I wasn’t going to be good at the ‘Halo’ series anymore,” David said. “And that’s right around when I joined the Army. They may be linked.”
He joined the military as an infantryman in 2008 having no clue as to what he was getting himself into.
He got offered the position of “Ranger” in training school and accepted not even knowing what this entailed.
He completed a few years in the Ranger regiment and two tours in Afghanistan, he then tried out for the Army’s Special Forces and made his way to the 5th Special Forces Group. After four deployments in this Regiment, he volunteered to become part of the Army’s Esports Team. The selection process was no breeze though as the Army had to filter through 6,500 applications for this position.
Some of his colleagues were not on board with his move to the eSports team, but this did not deter him.
David’s shift from real weapons to firing in-game firearms wasn’t difficult he says as there wasn’t an overlap with his military training in this regard.
The most difficult issue he has had to deal with he says is learning all the in-game terminology that gamers use.
David starts his day the same as any other active-duty soldier. His day starts with PT and then one day of the week for administrative tasks. Most days he starts at 9:00 practicing his game or creating content for YouTube and the other social media platforms.
The eSports league makes up part of the Army’s broader Marketing and Engagement Brigade based in Fort Knox, Kentucky where all the other military marketing teams are also stationed.
David and the Army’s other esports players stream to the public for roughly five hours a day, and then select highlights for upload on platforms like Twitch.
It isn’t easy to just become a member of the team though, soldiers fresh out of training can’t apply. Once they are a fully-fledged soldier, they can apply to become a member on an extra-curricular basis and then hopefully they can transition to a full member.
The soldiers that are on the team have to abide by certain strict rules. They aren’t allowed to solicit subscriptions from the Army’s official Twitch account and have to watch their profanity and keep it to an absolute minimum.
Members of the team are allocated their spot for three years and need to keep the Army’s physical requirements as well.
So even though this is a much-coveted title, these soldiers have worked hard to get themselves a spot on the team and this isn’t all fun and games as there are a lot of rules that they each have to adhere to, to keep their spot on this innovative eSports team.