First off, let me say these opinions and remarks are based on my experience, and those who went with me. There were four of us, and during our day and commute home, I learned we all shared pretty much the same opinion.

Field conditions were excellent and weather was very nice. Overcast with slight sun and a little drizzle around lunch which cooled my old bones nicely (kinda wished it rained more LOL). I am not a billy goat and when I say the terrain there was hilly I mean hilly with lots of rocks. Trees were all hardwood with very good visibility. Stealth wasn't really an option with exception around water boundary which had plenty of laurel cover. Needless to say with so many it was an open "long ball" field with mass amount of firepower being the order of battle. Another note about field; it is an active military training field which had plenty of physical hazards. Half of the field was covered with foxholes, barbed wire along with plenty of rocks made conditions a bit hazardous if you weren't paying attention. I myself stepped in some old barbed wire as did my brother in law. Fortunately no one in my group, or anyone else who played, suffered any injuries.

Game play commenced after a briefing by Cadets covering safety, rules, hazards, boundaries and the dividing of teams. A group from Maine came down and read citation for CPL GOODBLOOD who received medal of honor in battle we were creating.  Very touching. After teams were divided by cadets author and friends found themselves on the North Korean side. Being communists we found wasn't as bad as American propaganda makes it out to be LOL. Kidding aside, my new found "comrades" and I, were led out to our rally point as were the Yankee err American team.

The Battle was follows. Korean team given couple of minutes head start to try and eliminate CPL YOUNGBLOOD player. In the real battle Americans found Youngblood the next day dead with his machine gun and over 100 dead North Koreans. We on the other hand eliminated Youngblood with significantly less casualties. The Americans however came on strong and proceeded to push us Koreans off of main hill designated "SEOUL" and continued in my opinion to dominate battle all morning long. After lunch break and a bit of team shifting we again received a briefing from Cadets and also an opportunity to vent any wining so far in the day. Complaints about cheating, wiping and other issues were handled and dealt with. Kudos to Cadets for the complaining session. Battle resumed after lunch with Americans leading in points. It soon turned in my opinion to be an afternoon dominated by the North Korean team. Airborne insertion and random insertions by North Koreans proved to add the "Fog of War" experience quite nice. My communist buddies eliminated an American airborne assault quite nicely and then proceeded to eliminate American team totally off of field. With 15 minutes of game play left Americans were reinserted into they're base were my commie brethren proceeded to wipe Korea clean of those Yankee imperialist scum from our beloved country! hehe you get the point. After 5 minutes or so of us Koreans screaming, cheering and firing salute bursts game play was secured with North Koreans winning the day.

Further thoughts,opinions,remarks.....

Beginning of day seemed to start with everyone complaining of crappy paint. The Paintball supplier took paint and exchanged with other paint with no questions asked, which was nice. The replacement paint I feel, wasn't great, but the players bitching seemed to cease at that point. Kudos to paintball supplier. I believe it was National Paintball Supply but am not sure (no offense intended if I'm wrong). Cadets reffing game did an OK job and not being pro's I feel they did adequately. M60 and M249 saw made game play thrilling with machine gun firing blanks during battle. During the tired four hour car ride home, friends and I went over our day and we seemed to come to same conclusion. We had a pretty good day but feel game wasn't up to the hype. West Point's web page mentions simulated artillery strikes to "devastate" opponents, military smoke pots and pyrotechnics. I didn't see any of this except pyrotechincs which signaled starting of battles. Smoke grenades were used but I was waiting for the big smoke pots to cover field during game. Also caps, T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts weren't available which due to some "screwup", which was disappointing. We came to the conclusion that this was our first and last West Point big game. With the hilly rocky field 250-500 meter big with open long ball, and no stealth play, wasn't that great. I myself, like to creep up on positions, ambush, assault, flank which wasn't possible in game field. We agreed that though we had a good time we always have a better time at our local field spending half as much with twice the excitement. Will we be participating in another big game? Definately.....just not this one. All in all Cadets did an outstanding job. In my opinion if they can find an area with wooded growth that includes pine area, flatter bigger playing field were you cant see almost entire enemy from each base, would improve game play for the better. 'Til then, I'll be looking for another big game to attend.
 

Joe Allen
MPN Columnist