You described my childhood.
Played “War” all the time.
Even used camouflage!
We all had a BANG shooting time.
I never saw a spaghetti western until I got in the military, really. My education was the same as yours.
Interestingly enough, three of Clint Eastwood’s best Spaghetti Westerns were actually filmed in Spain. (Italian Director Leone though).
Camouflage and moulage!
Sometimes, real blood was available, free of charge. LOL
Yep I remember playing war too. We would divide into teams, and the bad guys team would be “Japs” or “Jerries”. Oh my God all us kids would go to reeducation camps today........
Same here; I see they still make plastic helmets for the kids as well (though it probably doesn’t look too cool or “Audie Murphy” with a goofy neon orange gun). I remember the plastic M-16s which made the rattling sound as you pulled the trigger; a couple of kids had the Winchester-type(?) pop-guns.
Much later I think Mattel came out with very realistic looking gear called “Monkey Division” which was very high end warfare and expensive. I think it was based on the Vietnam genre.