Soldiers or ex-soldiers of Reddit, do you ever play first person shooters, and either way, how do you feel about them?

1. Video games are nothing like being a soldier. There is no dirt, sweat, sun glare in your eye, smell, no ants and bugs crawling all over you as you lay in the grass. When I was in the army pretty much everyone had call of duty and we used to play together online.
   — tableman


2. Video games don't bother me at all. I know that they are games. What I don't like is movies. Most movies that I watch these days are so badly done, I always have to ask myself...why don't they have a fucking ex-/soldier helping them out when it comes to shooting/tactics? There are only a few movies these days that are really well done/realistic. Those are usually amazing movies.
   — explision


3. It is totally not the same. In video games you get a chance to kill the enemy. In real life I gotta fix some dickhead Major's internet connection so he can fap, meanwhile getting mortars and rockets shot at me 6 times a day. I never had a reason to load my weapon except when I was on the verge of killing myself because my marriage was in shambles and my wife got rid of my dog back home. Edit: Wow, this little comment has gained some popularity. I suppose I could add a little more detail. This all happened in 2010-2011. I did have some PTSD issues as a few of you have mentioned. I learned to forgive my wife. We got couple's therapy which was paid for by the army. We repaired our marriage and I got my own help to work through my issues. I actually got out of the army shortly after deployment. One of the main things my wife and I fought about was the fact that I could have turned down the deployment. I only had a couple of months left on my enlistment. I could have stayed home and been out before my unit returned home. I felt I needed to do it, so I voluntarily extended my enlistment for the duration of the tour plus terminal leave. But, yes she did get rid of my dog. My dog was an adorable mutt with lots of energy. I had named her Sugar. Sugar had some separation issues when I left. She chewed up furniture and the like, urinated on all of my wife's shoes and would spend hours sitting on mine. I understand why my wife felt she had to do it. We have been married 7 years now. We have a great marriage. We will always look back on that year apart and think of it as scar tissue. We can put up with a lot of challenges now since we made it through all that. I am pretty happy with my life now. Our past is what makes us. Our choices make our futures.
   — GoodRighter






4. Shooters with "realistic" war themes like Call of Duty and Battlefield are not immersive at all. Human combatants don't behave the way people do in video games. They're not even a close approximation of what firefights are really like. It's fun, but that's all it is. No infantryman is having PTSD flashbacks playing Arma.
   — AnAcceptableUserName


5. I don't really play them because I'm not big into video games. They're nothing like real life, though, so it really doesn't matter. It's like asking a fast food worker if it's really like Burger Time.
   — OldBiffFromTheFuture


6. Actual gameplay aside, which I think has been solidly established to be nothing like the real thing, all the dialog/cut scenes etc is all atrocious too. The closest thing to a robotic soldier like you see in some of those is a scared ass private right out of basic. Also newer seen anyone in a game holding a fucking mop or picking up someone else's cigarette butts. Purely speculating here now but I feel like the WWII games (ie COD 2, 3) might be a tiny bit more realistic (or less unrealistic, rather) in the sense that general doctrine was "run that way and shoot" rather than modern squad tactics. Just don't crucify me if you think I'm way off. I wasn't there.
   — bstrobel64