Reality TV Goes To War

By Acheron on 2001-03-09 08:03:23

(Fox News) Mark Burnett, creator of the hit show Survivor has come up with a new series called Combat Missions where former soldiers compete for money.  This has the military up in arms, which could spell disaster for the upcoming show.

The show, which is currently scheduled to air on USA networks in September, is catching a lot of grief from some current and former military.  They are worried that this would be furthur promoting violence on TV, and lower the reputation of the US military.

"I am extremely concerned about the image we're portraying here: glorifying military skills on national television," said Tracy-Paul Warrington, a retired Special Forces warrant officer who now works as a software engineer in California. "We are not entertainers. We are not gladiators. This puts us on par with the WWF."

The producers have already altered the format to quiet the opposition, but they still haven't done enough.

The show was originally going to have both retired and active military and police when Combat Missions was first introduced.  Now the spokepeople for the show say that they will have six teams comprised of former special forces from branches of the military: the Green Berets, Navy SEALS, and SWAT officers, and others.  The teams will be mixed with officers of each branch.

The groups who most effectively complete the grueling, staged "missions" will win some portion of a prize totaling about $500,000. Producers said they haven't yet determined the actual prize amount, or how it will be divided.

Participants will live on a secret military base and carry out jobs such covert operations as sniper attacks, urban assaults and hostage or prisoner-of-war rescues, which test the contestant's physical abilities, mental discipline and strategic skills.

Military people are not only afraid that it will promote violence, but it will mislead what the Special Forces do, and possibly unleash some military secrets.  They're worried that the contestants would violate their promise to never speak or write about their methods of operation.

"It's not so much that they?re revealing classified methods and techniques, but they?re revealing the process of blending all these techniques together to get a job done," he said, calling that mix of tactics "operational art." "And they?re distorting what reality is."

Not to mention that there would be possible safety hazards to address.

This sounds like a fun idea, but the risks seem to out weigh the gains.  No doubt, it would be a popular show, but it could very well lead to increased violence in schools, the work place, etc.  I don't know if this one will take flight.

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