Uncle Sam Wants You to Play This Game

BE all you can be"? Ancient history. "An army of one"? Last year's news. The military's newest promotional campaign is not even televised; it is America's Army, a free computer game produced by the military and aimed at winning the hearts and minds of tech-minded teenagers.

The game is the brainchild of Lt. Col. Casey Wardynski, director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point. Although Colonel Wardynski is not a gamer himself, his two sons are, and his oldest, 17-year-old Casey, is a big fan of the action game Delta Force. The colonel said the idea for the game came to him three years ago while he was researching ways to attract computer-adept recruits for an increasingly high-tech military.