This post was originally written and posted to Notes on my Facebook profile. I am merging my notes and the blog and added this post to the blog on February 5, 2011.
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So it's Sportsman's Weekend at Somerset Beach Campground. I was walking along in the west campground, minding my own business, when I saw a group of boys playing. It was a typical scene: they were running across the road and hiding behind trees: no big deal, although there was notably gunfire in the background from hunters practicing at the gun range. All of the sudden, I heard a boy shout, "THE GERMANS ARE COMING! THE GERMANS ARE COMING!" What the heck? I turned around and noticed a little boy wearing his bike helmet and crouched behind the embankment by the road.
They were playing World War Two!
At first, I couldn't decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Initially, I thought it was kind of morbid and depressing. But as I've thought about it, I've decided that I'm glad they have the education, that they know about World War II. Maybe someone they look up to, their grandpa, perhaps, fought in World War II, and they were playacting because they wanted to be like him. That's so great. Veterans are heroes, and it's awesome to see little boys view them that way, whether or not they realize it. Albeit a strange thing for little boys to be pretending, I think it's healthy. It's like cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians. Some moms of boys have told me that they didn't want their boys playing with pretend guns and wouldn't let them have toy guns as children, but it didn't matter. They used sticks or their fingers with rubber bands as pretend guns. Boys will be boys. Their sons are grown now, and none the worse for it.
I think it's kind of great. Just as long as they realize real guns aren't toys . . . and that they don't grow up with a stereotype against Germans. :oP
