Pandora's Ammo Box

"Hey dad, wanna see the blaster rifle I've been working on?" From the back seat, my eight year old son wants to show me the gargantuan weapon that he has created for the Lego figure that he has been carrying with him. His current fixation is on a PC game called "Star Wars Battlefront II," which his father introduced him to in spite of his mother's objections. Even before he started playing the game, he was actively pursuing the armaments and gear via a series of technical manuals from the folks up at Skywalker Ranch. Do you know the difference between an AT-AT and an AT-ST? The answer might surprise you.
His interest doesn't begin and end in a galaxy far, far away. He draws tanks and bombers. He talks with great seriousness about "chain guns" and "thermal detonators." We have two kinds of guns in our house: squirt and Nerf, but it hasn't stemmed the tide. My wife believes that guns should be used primarily by boys between the ages of eight and fourteen, while they are still fascinated by the machinery, and then put away forever. My son's preschool teacher referred to the swords that boys would pick up as "power extenders."
My own fascination with guns and ammo began in third grade, but really hit its peak in fourth and fifth grade. I read every book in the Columbine Elementary library about World War Two. I'm fairly certain that Mrs. Benson, our librarian, was keeping tabs on me as a result. I did enough research to to determine that the Germans had all the really cool planes and uniforms. I was a fan of the Luftwaffe and the Blitzkrieg because they sounded so very powerful. It was my fifth grade teacher, Robert P. Conklin, who made an additional suggestion to my reading list: "The Diary of Anne Frank." Oh, those Germans? They were the Nazis? That makes it kind of hard to feel good about my rooting interest in World War Two all of a sudden. I had an awakening. Many years later I was fortunate enough to have another teacher, Anthony McGinnis, who taught American History and all the machinery that helped create a super-power, from the Minnie Ball to the Bouncing Betty. By this time I had become much more of a pacifist, but I still had moments, like the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in "Apocalypse Now" when that thunder and roar took over.
Whatever bloodlust I may have harbored was kicked clean out of me after seeing "Johnny Got His Gun" and "Saving Private Ryan." I stopped playing first person shooter games after the Columbine massacre.
Now I've got a new boy looking for a power extender. I hope he'll be happy with a light saber.