[Covenantor]

Oh, and in my neck of the woods when we hauled out the toy guns we called it playing men or playing war, very non-PC.

[Chainmail]

We played war almost every day - one of our guys had a dad that brought back tons of souvenirs from Europe so we had real German helmets for the guys who wanted to play "bad guys".

We learned the values of planning to use key terrain, using good fields of fire, mutual support in defense, camouflage, cover and concealment.

Paid off big time when Vietnam rolled around.

[norwaypinesavage]

"we called it playing men or playing war, very non-PC"

We called it "Cowboys and Indians". That's even worse, 'cause the Indians always lost. We used "cap" guns. They used a roll of paper with little balls of gun powder in the roll that would pop when struck by the hammer of the real sized gun. We could make a real bang by striking the whole roll with a hammer.