Once upon a time, I was a General.

I had previously posted that I started playing Bad Company 2, a Battlefield game made by EA games. In that post I also mentioned that I was playing it with my clan, Team Rip. Shortly after the Bad Company 2 beta ended and the game went live, one of the clan members mentioned an organization called 21st Century Warfare (or 21CW for short). After playing with 21CW for only one week, I knew that I was in the midst of something much better than my years of clan gaming and I quit playing with Team Rip.

21CW is an organized and structured online tournament that involves two sides, the Coalition and the Opposition fighting over control of various parts of the world. Each side is represented by a Division that changes after each campaign. 21st Century Warfare has its own private battle server, its own private TeamSpeak server, and each side is provided their own private forums. Each tournament consists of a campaign. When you register to play you will be placed on 1 of the 2 sides and you remain as part of that force for the entire campaign. Campaigns usually last around 10 weeks and battles are held every Saturday from 12pm to 12am.

I joined up during Campaign 28 as a Recruit and by the end of the 6 week campaign I was promoted all the way up to the Sergeant Major of the Army (SMA). In real life, the SMA is the senior enlisted member of the Army, and is appointed to serve as a spokesman to address the issues of enlisted soldiers to the Army's highest positions. In 21CW, its the lowest rank of upper leadership called the HCO staff. I was then asked by the General that was picked for Campaign 29 if I would be his second in command, Major General. I agreed and off we went. However, he disappeared shortly thereafter and I was offered the position of General (the army's commanding officer). The tournament administrators said that I was the first General in tournament history to have such little tournament experience under their belt. That made the whole situation a bit daunting but none the less I embraced the opportunity.

Everything went great during the campaign and after I pushed to make changes to our communications paradigm amongst other things, everything flowed much smoother. In fact, it went so well that by the end of week 6 it was mathematically impossible for the other army to win let alone tie us. So we agreed to end the campaign early with a victory for my army and move on to the next campaign.

 

 

So now, it's back to being a private and we'll see where things lead me.

Memory: Anchors Aweigh

This morning while surfing on my Sirius radio, I came across the end of Anchors Aweigh played by the US Navy band. I know it's insane but I actually started getting choked up as memories came flooding back. In 1995, I attended boot camp at Recruit Training Great Lakes, IL and I remember this tunnel we would march through where we would sing one verse of the song while marching through and another different verse when we marched back through on our return. It was a competition between company drill instructors to see who could get their company to sing the song the strongest and we made our drill instructors proud by winning that competition. Let me tell you, the power with which a company of young men can bellow Anchors Aweigh flawlessly makes me a bit misty now at 33 years old. It's one of those things that I don't expect anyone else to understand unless you were in the same situation. It was a very impressionable time in my life and now that all the resentment I had for the bad things I encountered has melted away, I only remember the good times and that was one of them.


Here are the verses:

Verse 1

Stand, Navy, out to sea, Fight our battle cry;

We'll never change our course, So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y.

Roll out the TNT , Anchors Aweigh. Sail on to victory

And sink their bones to Davy Jones, hooray!

Verse 2 (most widely sung)

Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh.

Farewell to foreign shores, We sail at break of day, of day.

Through our last night on shore, Drink to the foam,

Until we meet once more. Here's wishing you a happy voyage home!

My long awaited return to Battlefield.

It's been quite awhile since my clan (TeamRIP) has returned to EA Games Battlefield series. The Battlefield series are First-person shooter (FPS) games. FPSs are a video game genre which centers the gameplay around gun- and projectile weapon-based combat through the first person perspective. FPS games have even been used over the years as a recruiting ground for the US military.

I started playing the series with their first game called Battlefield 1942. Battlefield 1942 was one of the first mainstream games to represent a dramatic shift in FPS game play mentality not only favoring individualism, but simultaneously encouraging teamwork and coordination. The teamwork and coordination are what won me over and kept me playing the series over the years. However, for the past couple years my clan moved away from the BF series and tried other FPS games. Finally, returning with the release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. This game is not for the weak of heart. It's intense but extremely satisfying. Teamwork and coordination are a must and it's very evident when a team lacks those two qualities.

We have our own server which allows us to have control over what maps and modes are run. It also gives us the power to remove people from the server that are breaking the rules and/or ruining gameplay for the other players. If you play, Bad Company 2 or are looking for a clan that centers on teamwork, coordination and having fun, come join us. Play with us for a while and see if our style of gameplay fits with yours. We'd love to have you. Below is a banner of our server, click on it and you'll be able to join the server right away. Alternatively check out TeamRIP and see what our clan has to offer.