Word of the Day: perdue

I had something of a family emergency tonight, so, I am very late with this story, and will admit, it’s something of a re-run.  I’m feeling very glad to have such fine people in my life.

Today’s Word:

perdue

As in:

As the military conflict in Iraq continues to have the attention of the U.S. and NATO, the  allies are considering several plans to improve the outcomes in training the Iraqi forces, to be able to hand the country back to a more effective fighting force.  

While many disagree about the strategies of the troop surges, and the logistics of the eventual draw-down, still others are debating the kind of training the Iraqis should be given.

Among the training protocols suggested, based upon the lawsuit filed against the makers of violent video games, is a daily regimen of 3 hours a day playing “Doom” and 3 hours a day playing “Quake.” Fighter pilots will be expected to spend 3 hours a day playing “Descent” and “X-wing” in addition to the standard “Doom” requirements.

The developers of this training protocol cite school shootings as evidence of the efficacy of such games in the education and training of children as marksmen. The argument is based upon the fact that Michael Carneal, the suspect in the Paducah, Kentucky shooting had never, until the day he went to school with a gun, handled or fired a weapon. The only experience Carneal had with “shooting” was in playing the games “Doom” and “Quake.”

The most telling aspect of the educational value of these games is that Carneal, inexperienced though he was, fired eight times, and hit with every single shot — a remarkable feat of marksmanship, especially given that the students were moving quickly and instinctively away from the path of their unstable classmate, and sought perdue locations as refuge.

“If we can achieve results even half as good as these with the Iraqi forces, we’ll be home by Christmas,” says Army spokesperson Ken Carson. “I think we owe the Iraqis the best training we can provide, and this seems to that training. ”

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I am willing to admit this story is old enough that I had to do more re-writing than I expected, but, hey, that just means it’s fresher, a second edition, one that has never been seen in this form, which is totally different than an actual re-run.

perdue / per-DOO / 1. out of sight, concealed, esp. as in a military ambush. 2. (obscure) a soldier on an especially dangerous mission.