UnNews:US Army promotes "play therapy"

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Who knew The Onion® had a retarded stepbrother?

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UnNews

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Tuesday, December 3, 2024, 16:59:59 (UTC)

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25 February 2015

The commercial tie-in is not the first, as "K-rations" are now referred to on the battlefield as "Happy Meals."

FORT BENNING, Georgia -- The U.S. Army has finished testing a new grenade that can be stacked like Lego blocks. The Scalable Offensive Hand Grenade lets infantrymen connect up to three grenades during battle.

The munition is part of the Army's strategy of "reaching out" to Islam through play therapy, to help jihadis get in touch with their inner child and view American combat troops as warm and friendly social workers, culminating in President Obama's conference after the Charlie Hebdo attack: the National Summit on Youngsters Who Don't Play Well.

The SOHG will be manufactured in bright colors, with translucent SOHGs that can be the doors and windows if building Lego houses in some desert foxhole. Battery-operated motorized Lego SOHGs are on the drawing board, as well as tie-ins with popular movies such as Penguins. Harry Lubin of the Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence said, "It really has a devastating effect," presumably in contrast to ordinary grenades, which merely emit unpleasant smells. The Army's Defensive Hand Grenade, by comparison, is thrown at an incoming offensive hand grenade to explosively deflect it, so that the intended target does not become what Mr. Obama calls a Marine Corpse.

Always ahead of the curve, Lego grenades are already available at street bazaars throughout northern Mexico. Here, Ramón and Paco Hernández display their wares at the Fasto y Furioso Flea Market.

Support for the SOHG is not unanimous. Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt complained that a single SOHG insinuated into the Lego castle where Queen Margrethe II lives could ruin "quiet hour." She asked to address a joint session of the Congress, but was told to get in line behind Benjamin Netanyahu, who is to speak in March to remind Americans what a national leader looks like.

The SOHG was reportedly devised after engineers at the Maneuver Center of Excellence spent months of watching Looney Tunes, particularly episodes in which the coyote offers the roadrunner a "toy" that is actually a devastating bomb. The Army hopes its troops fare better than the coyote used to. The Center began investigating weapons in the form of toys during the administration of Bill Clinton, who did wonders with an Erector set.

The SOHG joins the Tinkertoy Tank that was used so effectively in Operation Desert Storm, and the Slinky® Secretary of State.

Sources

• Douglas Ernst "Army’s new grenades can be stacked like Legos for ‘devastating effect’". Washington Times, February 24, 2015