Fallujah video game angers some families

McClatchy Newspapers

RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina company that plans to release a video game about one of the Iraq war’s bloodiest battles is running into a buzzsaw of criticism.

The game, “Six Days in Fallujah,” is being made with the help of Marines who fought in the battle, and its defenders say it provides a history lesson about what Atomic Games president Peter Tamte has described as “the largest urban military assault in about half a century.”

But it has hit a nerve because U.S. soldiers are still dying in Iraq — on Friday, five soldiers were killed in the deadliest attack in a year. The controversy raises questions about the line that divides art and entertainment; books and movies about the Iraq war haven’t aroused similar protests.

“Game is the key word here,” said Karen Meredith, 55, of Mountain View, Calif., on Friday. She was notified on Memorial Day in 2004 that her only child — 1st Lt. Ken Ballard, 26 — had been killed in Iraq. She said the game trivializes the war.

Meredith has read descriptions of “Six Days” but has not seen it, nor does she intend to.