Lightning lined the clouds as a young high school student from northern Oklahoma, assembled his gear for a 40-hour pellet-gun battle.
Mason Lowery, 17, plans to join the U.S. Army after graduation, but his uniform and rifle for this military simulation were almost an exact copy of the equipment carried by Russian troops fighting and dying in Ukraine.
“I don’t really know what they’re fighting for, just that they’re fighting,” Mason said of the war. “I watch the drone footage sometimes when it comes up on Instagram.”
The manufactured reality of war’s sights and sounds, but without its trauma, is what drew Mason to this fake battle. In this game, the war in Ukraine has never happened. Instead, it is set in Russia, in a dystopian world where George W. Bush, in his sixth term as president, rallies NATO to invade the country.
Mason was joined by roughly 300 others who paid around $250 to the company MilSim West to take part in what is advertised as a “light infantry simulation” that involves two teams — NATO and Russian forces — battling for nearly two days with plastic pellet guns, blank ammunition, night-vision goggles and explosions.
