Between the lines.

• Position: War toys and video games

Web page This page appeared on the JC Penney website last year. The ad for a toy called "Forward Command Post" features an American soldier standing in a bombed-out house. It's an example of the growing collaboration, in recent years, between the entertainment industry and the U.S. military:

* The military is using video games of violent conflict both to train soldiers and to recruit young boys by introducing them to the virtual experience of combat (see details below);

* the Army has hired Hollywood movie technicians to design new equipment for urban combat. It paid $45 million to set up a combat think-tank called the Institute for Creative Technologies, where people who worked on Alien, Apocalypse Now, and Back to the Future use simulation and video game technology to develop new equipment and techniques for the soldiers of the future;

* and combat play reaps big profits. Video games with themes of terrorism and war in Middle-Eastern settings are selling well. In the game "Conflict: Desert Storm" (Gotham Games), the object is to lead a commando squad on a series of missions culminating with the player personally killing a Saddam Hussein-like character. Other popular games include "SOCOM (Special Operations COMmand), U.S. Navy SEALS" (Sony); "Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix" (Activision); and Tora Bora Ted.

Soldier Toy soldiers are not what they were in the era of G.I. Joe figures deployed over imaginary battlefields. Today's war toys are increasingly explicit in defining the experience for the child. A toy gun called "Laser Challenge V2" comes with a hit-recording vest, inviting kids as young as eight to shoot each other in the chest.

House Where is this house? It appeared on the JC Penney website right around the time talk of a U.S. invasion of Baghdad was heating up. The military noted that its smart weapons would enable it to avoid "collateral damage," but this house has been thoroughly trashed.

What They Love Traditionally, boys' and girls' toys have often been contrasted as being "rough-and-tumble" versus "nurturing." But that distinction may be disappearing, not only for healthy reasons of waning gender stereotyping, but for more questionable reasons such as the growing tolerance of--or obliviousness to--aggression and hostility in play by both sexes. Burger King, for example, apparently saw nothing amiss in its recent "Kids Meals" promotion featuring a plush toy bird called "Silly Slammer Chirpy," which is accompanied by...