LORD OF THE FLIES (2) & AN UNHAPPY CONCLUSION

I have tried to recount the kinds of injuries at Airsoft Games I’ve organized over the years, only to realize that most injuries were ancillary to the guns themselves. I’ve had students stung by wasps, fall down hills, fall out of trees, hit by go-carts, entangled in briars, jumped by other kids who panicked when cornered, cut by barbed wire, jump into rivers to avoid being caught, nearly run down by horses, dehydrated, sun-stroked, and run over by stampedes in retreats. Most of these injuries could be characterized as accidental, I suppose. The injuries that concerned me most were the ones inflicted by a sadistic minority of boys who enjoyed the discomfort of others under the pretense of having fun.

In Airsoft battles with children, I’ve always abided by a few rules for the overall enjoyment of the students, chief of which was never to take a battle so seriously that I felt the need to use overwhelming force on the opposition. No matter how belligerent or threatening they seemed. They were still kids after all. The combination of my many evasive powers and the kids’ keen evaluation of those strategies worked against me as they got much older and were able to chart my signature strategies (like fleeing when discovered). They employed the equivalent of “carpet bombing” by dividing forces and canvassing the entire field while shooting anywhere a 5’9, 175 lb. man could be hiding. One field mastermind had a scary intuition about my behaviors, as if he had a map of my mind. He understood that if he zeroed in on one of my younger students instead of looking for me, he would find me somewhere close. One time he passed out my phone number, having squads walk the perimeter of the battlefield, calling my cell phone. That time I had hidden in bamboo for forty-five minutes in the cold rain, my cell phone chirruped, and I was shot in my eye which swelled shut for an entire week. My wife learned to anticipate my assortment of injuries, filthy clothes, and hours of sleep that followed, especially when I combined Airsoft with all-night campouts.

The last story found me fleeing deep into the woods with two younger students at my heels in order to allow the sniper in my group to finish a very accurate work of sniping at a rabble-rousing contingent, and increasing their confusion. After retreating about twenty feet or so, we hid again. A few minutes later I heard Luigi retreating as fast as he could in our direction, calling out my name in the loudest whisper he could without outright yelling. Locating us, he told us how more insubordination ensued when we left, and the boys had taken their argument back up to the dollhouse where he believed a coup of some sort was in progress. I looked at my watch. We had about fifteen minutes left in the game, but that was enough time for someone to get hurt at the fast rate of decay happening amongst the enemy. I completely changed tactics.

“OK. We are going to advance on the dollhouse from the west along the grove of evergreen trees. Luigi, you will stay east of the trees. During the last two minutes of the game, I will lead the little ones to open fire. Luigi, make sure you are locked and loaded, because you’re going to back us up. Got it?” Everyone did, so we parted ways. My goal was to give the trembling little ones a taste of the possible fears involved in battle without incurring the injuries. A skirmish for the last two minutes of the game would be a healthy way for them to learn this. I didn’t want them not talking about the battle at school because they hid the entire time. I wanted them to end on a high note where they were the aggressors in a very decisive and successful counterattack (because the opposition would not have time to respond). I calculated that it would take us about ten minutes to get into place, three minutes to evaluate the situation, and about two minutes for the finale. We followed the plan up until the five minute mark. I had to further change my plans.

A large number of boys were outside the dollhouse guarding it while a fight was taking place inside. I heard several voices shouting and then scuffling, and then more shouting and then more scuffling. I didn’t think it conscionable to allow what sounded like punishment to go on for much longer so I open-fired on the guards, rushing at them with the little ones flanking me and unloading their clips into the fray. The guards, taken by surprise, surrendered with joy nonetheless, a few traitors from my own side telling me that the last half hour of the game had been hell. They had been forced to join under pain of being shot and with promises of food. There had eventually been a showdown between the rival leaders who were inside. Leader was with a few henchmen, arguing it out with the Pretender who had been shot at point-blank range in front of us while we were hiding. Things were escalating inside. I told the guards to back me up. 

Luigi had arrived on the scene and was more than eager to do what was needed. With approximately one minute left, I told Luigi that I would open the door and he would repeat fire into the room. But not at anyone in particular. The inside of the dollhouse was plastic and wood, and the bullets would crazily ricochet making everyone inside to hit the floor. We would apprehend them, I would call time, and the game would be over. This was intended to be a mercy mission for the Pretender who was evidently being misused by Leader.

Everything went according to plan, but do you know what happened? My entering the scene to rescue the Pretender backfired on me. Instead of being a hero to Pretender, I was the enemy. As soon as I entered the dollhouse, both rivals turned their guns on me, giving each other instructions and each following the directions of the other. Surprised at this turn of events, I called time (we were a couple of minutes over the game), but neither of them observed me. They decided instead to attack me by taking one of the little ones hostage.

Needless to say, I had to get parents involved. Mothers, that is. The fathers were too busy doing other things. Important things, I think.

LORD OF THE FLIES & AIRSOFT VIOLENCE

During a four-year streak of playing Airsoft with the boys and girls of my school STONE TABLE, I have seen some aggressively cowardly action on the battlefield. Having Nashville Airsoft attend the battles I organized to peddle automatic M-5s, M-16s, Uzis, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, and ammunition to the kids I invited and organized to fight ended up being a mistake of mine more than once. As a rule, I made sure my own guns and munitions were inferior so as not to pose a threat to the child with the cheapest gun. After all, I did not bring kids together so I could enjoy a turkey shoot. I brought them together to illustrate the complexity and difficulty of the historical battles we studied in History. 

And because I was sick and tired of hearing my students say things like “If I were Charlemagne, I would have …”  There is nothing like having the plight of the Americans in The Battle of the Bulge sink into a child’s bones when you have him and his classmates spread thin in the woods to prevent a larger army of kids from literally forcing them into the Harpeth River. Or there is nothing like getting a kid to empathize with Hrothgar by having him sit around a fire at night in the late Fall eating turkey legs and hearing the story of Beowulf while coyotes are yipping in the distance. My students who have attended these events don’t typically walk around talking about things they don’t know. It’s a form of assimilation I’ve enjoyed for over a decade.

However, in my eagerness to “get kids to learn” I created a world of personal terror for myself during the two and three hour battles where I had foolishly ensured that the odds were stacked against me for the sake of the students. I’ve been chased and funneled by a smarter enemy of  7^th & 8^th graders into a barbed wire fence where I received two gouges in my left leg being stuck on the fence while being mercilessly shot, poned at point blank range with automatic fire by a foreign contingent who always seemed not to understand English on the battlefield, run down by squads of boys in a hefty go-cart doing drive-bys, sniped in the head from ridiculously far distances by 9^th graders, chased downhill and shot to the point of having to dive downhill to avoid elementary and middle school students who routed my encampment, quietly lain in fear and trepidation in the middle of thorn bushes, nettles, deer and coyote poop, and once shot in the eye after hiding in the middle of a bamboo patch in drizzling, 40 degree rain. I have actually prayed for personal safety while crouching in the middle of a wheat field surrounded by students with the biggest guns talking within earshot of me about what they were going to do with me when they found me. It was Lord of the Flies all over. Especially one time.

A young, aggressive boy attended my school. He was from a wealthy family, over-confident in disposition, and snide in communication. He was not liked in the school by any student I can remember, but the battlefield was a different situation altogether. Away from mom and dad and in the company of other young men and girls, a sinister side of him emerged, making many of the younger boys fight each other to be on his side in the game in order not to be shot (or pistol-whipped) by him if caught.

I was in my usual attire, camo and a springloaded Desert Eagle. I had the handicap of a few younger students in my care. It was dark and fifty or so boys were divided into two teams on twenty acres of a Southern plantation that sported a small forest with caves. The eldest child in my squad was a nine-year-old Hebrew with a gas-powered gun. He knew Torah inside and out and had that strange, earthy confidence of many of my Jewish comrades of utilizing actual Old Testament accounts to their everyday advantage. Despite that I was the teacher and had created this reality, I knew that I had no authority until 9:00 p.m. when the game was officially finished and the  alternate reality over. My plan was to evade capture for the next hour. If it came to fighting, Luigi would be our saving grace.

We were hunkered down on the edge of the forest floor, a drop-off and the caves directly behind us. There were four of us, and the two youngest were scared to death. Down the hill towards our left came a platoon of boys, about thirty in number, silhouetted against the moonlight, being led by none other than the brat who was mostly disliked in real-time reality. And what a cheat! He had appropriated several squads and dissidents from my own team into one large mob. They stampeded down the hill after him, and he abruptly stopped no less than fifteen feet from where we were lying prone.

“Shut up!” he ordered. “Where did they go?” A few kids, eager to be in his good graces, offered locations where we definitely were not. He became irate at the contradictions.

“If you are lying, I’m going to shoot you right here.” Nobody protested, but they corporately tried to explain in illogical fashion how we could feasibly be anywhere.

“If you are lying, l'll shoot you.” Then he added “If you find Mr. Grayson, leave him for me.”

The hair on my arms bristled. What did that mean? Leave him for me. He was taking every moment of the game too seriously. I felt the perplexity of Ralph in Lord of the Flies. Like Ralph I had only the best interest of the little ones at heart. Ralph wanted to get them safely off the island. I wanted them to be safe and to have fun while learning. Ralph was appreciated by all present on the island but one: Jack. I was liked by all students present but this one. Jack wanted to stick Ralph like a pig. I knew this kid had a vendetta against me, but I figured it was largely due to his imbalanced mother who doted on him like he was her husband. I also figured that "violence" would only extend to intentionally incomplete homework and cheeky behavior in class. Here was a monster on my hands, and the game needed to get over fast.


One of the three kids in my squad farted, and the other two froze. I laid my arm across the little uns' heads to keep them down. Luigi, tired of keeping down when he had a good shot, open fired, hitting the caustic leader on the skin somewhere and causing confusion amongst the platoon.

“You shot me, idiot!” Leader singled out one of the kids in his group with whom he did not get along at school, and who, to be quite honest, was his spitting character-image. I listened to the showdown between these two love-starved, socially backward, and power-hungry rivals.

“No, I didn’t!”

Blap! Blaaap! Blap! Leader squeezed a few rounds point blank at his foil, and the foil went to his knees and then his side, howling in pain and protesting.

"Damn you!"

“Grab his gun!” Leader yelled. There was a scuffle and the gun was apprehended despite the angry complaints of the injured.

“You shot me, and you know it!” Leader yelled. “You go up to the prison (an oversized dollhouse) and you stay there until we get Mr. Grayson.”

There was that crazy threat again. Luigi shot again, a few bursts. Some of the enemy dispersed and a few of the enemy were able to locate the source of the fire. The next thing I knew, I was hightailing it out of there with the two little ones, leaving that brave, Hebrew Christ-figure to take the heat for us.