We heard this 2.5 years ago at our son’s graduation from the Fire Academy. They used to get recruits from the trades - people who knew their way around tools and machinery. Now they get screen jockeys who don’t know which end of a hammer to pick up. But they are really good at mowing people down in Grand Theft Auto. Just the sort you want behind the wheel of the fire engine and behind the hose.
Years ago at an airshow standing in line to see the Navy Recruiter flight simulator with my then 10 year old son. We were at the head of the line when the group before us exited the trailer. The next scheduled “pilot” was late in showing up and delayed our turn. The recruiter turned to me and said that he’ll just give him a couple more minutes and then he’ll have to find somebody else.
I told him my son could probably fly that thing. The guy looked at him and asked him he really thought he could. My son laughed and said, “Yes, Sir.” He had previously been playing on some old computer flight simulators as well as Nintendo flight games since he was about 6 or 7.
He took him inside the trailer for a few minutes to see what my son could do and stepped back out and brought the next group of people standing in line to observe. He gave a quick briefing to my son, the “pilot” and then my son proceeded to launch off an aircraft carrier, fly a few miles to the coast, head in between some mountain peaks and locate a target in a valley, turn and head back out to sea and home.
The recruiter said that video games, to some degree, were actually a blessing for recruiting potential aviators.