Shock Therapy at Boot Camp
Posted on August 10, 2006
Discover reports that a new technology from VirTra could make boot camp both more effective and more painful for those entering the military. The device from VirTra will provide a painful electronic shock when a trainee is "shot" in a special 360-degree combat training exercise using video screens.
Military and police trainees strap the five-pound battery-powered device around their midsections, step into a room lined with video screens, and plunge into realistic combat scenarios. When a trainee gets "shot" or otherwise injured, Threat-Fire zaps him. At the lowest setting, the shock feels like a rubber band snapped hard against the skin, says VirTra president Bob Ferris. The highest setting knocks trainees to the floor and incapacitates them; VirTra says they recover, no lasting harm done, within a few minutes. "If you've ever seen Star Wars, when the emperor shoots lightning bolts at Luke Skywalker-that's what it's like," says Ferris.Ferris claims the realism of VirTra helps prepare trainees to cope with sometimes lethal stress responses like "tunnel vision," a natural tendency to ignore potential threats in the periphery. The Army agrees. "We want the trainee to be able to concentrate and function and fight through that pain and try to see a scenario out to a conclusion," says Doug West, a firearms instructor at Fort Hood, Texas, which has purchased six belts so far.
It probably feels like a video game until you get zapped by the Threat-Fire. Albert Rizzo, a University of Southern California psychologist who studies post-traumatic stress disorder, told Discover that the more realistic training could be useful. "There are literally 100 years of learning theory saying that in training, you should replicate as many cues of the real world as possible."