Little Green Men

April 28, 2010 9:50 AM

The five worst Army men of all time.
posted by william_boot (82 comments total)

I LOL'd. Love the last guy. "I found a chicken leg!"
posted by amethysts at 9:53 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

My favorite army men are the ones who come out of the cast poorly, so the stocks of their rifles are reversed. I have at least 8 soldiers a triggerpull away from blowing their own heads off.

Also, apparently the writer has never seen a grenade before if the last picture is any indication.
posted by Think_Long at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2010 [7 favorites]

Memories. Army men, Transformers toys, and lighterfluid were at the center of many happy Saturdays and one minor brush fire.
posted by anti social order at 9:54 AM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Aw, I like the idea, but dude, #1 is a fricking grenadier. They're badass. Ok, maybe not this one so much but it's a grenade.

Also: badassness (yes, that's a word, so there) of army soldiers is not necessarily about the weapon they're carrying (here referencing the radiomen). My fave was the guy with the binoculars. Obviously an officer. He was the dude in charge, and a prime sniping target for my brother. I guarded him well.

The "marching infantry" were apparently trained by Master Sergeant John Cleese, though.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:55 AM on April 28, 2010 [6 favorites]

The only Army man worth anything in a lawn war is the sniper. All the rest get beheaded by the inevitable mowing that occurs after you loose them in the yard.
posted by srboisvert at 9:56 AM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

I'm fairly sure from my lifetime experience of watching Band of Brothers that number one's part of a morter team.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 9:56 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've never seen army men casualties before. Maybe they were deemed too depressing and cut from the run before I was born? Because now I think they're awesome, and I want a whole bunch of them.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:59 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I think the last guy is wielding something like a potato masher.
posted by brundlefly at 9:59 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

This article is getting our heroes killed in Iraq.
posted by DU at 9:59 AM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

I really like the Matchbox sets when I was a kid, especially the Commando and Afrika Corps figurines.

I also had a bunch of toy soldiers (made in the UK?) with a metal base and plastic bodies with tremendous detailing. The same manufacturer also produced a German Kubelcar, a Jeep, and other cool vehicles. Anyone remember those?
posted by KokuRyu at 9:59 AM on April 28, 2010

MADE IN CHINA

Shouldn't #1 have a separate mortar piece?

Also where is crawling guy? Or is he just lumped in with the wounded?
posted by Artw at 10:01 AM on April 28, 2010

Us awesome, rad, inventive, creative, cool, and entirely well-balanced kids had uses for all the different Army men.

Y'all just needed bigger imaginations.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:01 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I thought for sure William Calley would be on this list.
posted by maqsarian at 10:02 AM on April 28, 2010 [6 favorites]

Man, I had a crapload of those. I think my dad's still finding them buried in the yard from the time I got out the garden hose and made a mud-hole battlefield
posted by ghharr at 10:05 AM on April 28, 2010

The last guy is part of a mortar team.

My brother and I used to set up huge numbers of these guys and then take turns gunning them down with rubber bands. I was always better than he was, but I also often cheated too, much to my everlasting regret.
posted by klangklangston at 10:05 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I thought for sure William Calley would be on this list.

My first thought upon reading the title of the post. I was not disappointed. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
posted by Splunge at 10:07 AM on April 28, 2010

anti social order's comment reminded me of when I bought a crapload of GI Joe action figures and playsets at yard sales for incredibly low prices. Lots of duplicates meant that I could have pristine soldiers at the beginning of battle and horribly mutilated figures at the end.

The coolest ones were the robot-looking figures—I could melt the duplicates into pieces and then solder them together with bits and pieces of wires, LEDs and other random electrical components. Nothing was cooler than two mostly-destroyed robots slugging it out in a climactic battle on the deck of the USS Flagg.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:07 AM on April 28, 2010

I would add Oliver North.
posted by Splunge at 10:08 AM on April 28, 2010

I agree that the minesweeper is the most annoying toy soldier, but not quite as consistently annoying as Peter Hartlaub is.
posted by blucevalo at 10:10 AM on April 28, 2010

This guy clearly had the "Guns of Navarone" playset. I had that when I was a kid, and I'm 99% positive that's where the white German soldiers came from. It was a two (or more) foot-tall giant black plastic mountain.

I don't know what he's bitching about with the dead guys. They're included because people get shot and die in war. Why wouldn't they include that? It's part of the set!

Navarone also had two stretcher-bearers and a stretcher with handles that fit into their hands so you could carry the dead/dying green guy. I honestly thought it added to the realism of the whole thing.

He apparently lost the green soldier from the Navarone set that was cast in the being-blown-up-from-behind action pose (his helmet was knocked halfway off his head by the blast), and the similar being-blown-backward-by-something-exploding-in-front guy whose arms and legs were flailing forward whilst he flew backward.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:11 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, seconding the William Calley comment.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:11 AM on April 28, 2010

I always felt that the manufacturers of these things were under the impression that the people who bought these figures were all building intricate WWI dioramas. As opposed to the reality: eight-year-old boys using them to ambush their sister's Barbie.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 10:21 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Goddamn it.

Dead army men are cool.

The WTF? is loading a mortar.

Self link: Photos of my army men and they are all awesome (the army men, some of the photos not so much). Andersonville Playset. More and more.

Check out The Army Men HomePage too (not mine).

If I can find them I will find and post links to even worse army men. I could go on for hours but am at my place of employment right now.

Cool site and cool post. Thanks.

On preview:

This guy clearly had the "Guns of Navarone" playset. I had that when I was a kid, and I'm 99% positive that's where the white German soldiers came from.

Yes, that is where the majority of those white germans came from. They also were used as Africa Corps figures in the "Desert Fox" playsets.

the green soldier from the Navarone set that was cast in the being-blown-up-from-behind action pose

One of the coolest army men ever.
posted by marxchivist at 10:21 AM on April 28, 2010 [7 favorites]

The last guy is part of a mortar team.

Huh, I suppose that's reasonable. My mortar teams always came connected on one double-long platform
posted by Think_Long at 10:23 AM on April 28, 2010

Aw, I like the idea, but dude, #1 is a fricking grenadier. They're badass. Ok, maybe not this one so much but it's a grenade.

The article writer is so wrong about #1 it's not even funny, and clearly none of you are seeing it either. Look at his pose; he's on both knees, because he just ran forward at full speed and went to a full-on knee slide. Why did he do that? Because that awesome motherfucker is grabbing a just-landed German potatomasher and is about to lob it back. Far from being the worst army man, he is clearly the best.
posted by Caduceus at 10:23 AM on April 28, 2010 [13 favorites]

BONUS (from the article's comment section):

"Worst Cowboy: The cowboy riding the horse, after you lost the horse."
posted by applemeat at 10:24 AM on April 28, 2010 [14 favorites]

When I was a kid, a spoiled little neighbor had the most awesome set of plastic army men, much better than the generic green guys the rest of us had. They had not only dead guys, they had wounded men crawling with one hand holding a chest wound, and men seemingly mid air from an explosion. Color coded (allies v axis) and reasonably accurately depicted.

Hell, even this Hartlaub's set is better than the ones I had.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:28 AM on April 28, 2010

I owned a couple of sets of cheap-ass army men when I was a little kid and they were one of the best toys I ever had. I spent entire afternoons in my bedroom setting them up in elaborate formations and playing out battles that usually ended with my three favourite figures (which represented me and my two best friends) saving the day after all seemed lost. I remember them fondly, but I also remember the first time I signed a book about WWII out of the library (this would have been grade six or so) and was shocked by the photos of bombed-out towns, dead people and the Holocaust. It kind of took the fun out of playing at war, which up to that point I guess I thought of as a grown-up version of tag.

That said, my least favourite army men were the dudes who were crawling along the ground with their rifles held perpendicular to their bodies. You couldn't make them shoot at the enemy, so all they were good for was looking cool when you blew them up and made them fly backward.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:30 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, apparently the writer has never seen a grenade before if the last picture is any indication.

That's not a grenade. It is a mortar round.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:42 AM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

The best use for army men? Fuel.
posted by plinth at 10:44 AM on April 28, 2010

Hmm. I thought potato masher but that does look like a mortar round, and the posture makes more sense that way, too. Like the aforementioned cowboy without the horse, separate piece multi-unit arrangements suck.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 10:59 AM on April 28, 2010

I had a few bags of the generic guys that everyone else had, but my brother had the Marx World War II Battleground playset, which contained some of the same soldiers described by others above. It had the two stretcher bearers and the wounded guy, the Just Got Hit guy, the best machine gun guy ever made (though recent research had revealed that it may have actually been a German machine gun) whole set of German guys, including the marching soldiers, and all manner of vehicles and accessories including a blown up house, a half track, and even something like a Higgins boat.

Since my wife and I are mostly disgusting new-age hippie liberal parents of an eight year old, my son doesn't have any army men. However, one of his friends recently brought over his army man set, which contained several of the army men and accessories my brother had plus some new ones I'd never seen before.

It took every ounce of willpower I had to not make the kids go out and play while I spent the next hour inside with the army men going "Pew pew pew! Buddabuddabuddabudda Pskeeew!"
posted by bondcliff at 11:03 AM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

The only Army man worth anything in a lawn war is the sniper.

In a forest war is at its best when you are the sniper. Some of the best times I ever had as a kid were when my friends and I would set up elaborate small-scale fortifications in the woods behind my house, populate the fortifications with hundreds of our green army men, and then take turns picking them off with a BB gun. That, folks, is a god damned good time.

There's something wrong with little boys.
posted by Nothing... and like it at 11:07 AM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

There's something wrong with little boys.

On the contrary. That sounds like a cool idea now.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:09 AM on April 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Army man bowl.
posted by Mavri at 11:14 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I never played much with army guys, but I don't remember seeing that particular iteration of them as a kid. When I was a kid the neighbor clan's boys had a bunch, a mixture of cowboys, indians, and army men. Those in the link appear to be for setting up a nice static battlefield tableau that you sit back and admire. The play I recall was more basic shooters vs. bullet- and arrow-recipient scenarios, with self-supplied sound effects.

A couple of years ago at a tag sale I bought a little indian figure of this type, cast in lead. He's grasping a tomawawk and has a buffalo horn headdress. He's in the act of falling to his knees, with his arms thown out and his head back and his tiny eyes closed. In other words, he's in the ACT of taking a fatal bullet from a cowboy. On a little log thing on the ground between his feet, it says CRAZY HORSE. They don't make those anymore.
posted by longsleeves at 11:14 AM on April 28, 2010

Yeah, I think the last guy is wielding something like a potato masher.

"BEWARE MY LEMON ZESTER OF DEATH!"
posted by Kskomsvold at 11:14 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, I wish I had known the realities of how machine guns actually work when I was a kid. Because we just assumed they could fire bullets non-stop, they'd hit everything in their path, and they would never run out of ammo. My older brother always got the machine gunner so after I'd blow up his tank with my bazooka (because we assumed a bazooka would always destroy a tank in one shot no matter the range or where on the tank it hit) he'd use his next turn to wipe out my entire army with his machine gunner.

I wish I could do it all over again so I could limit his machine gunner to a supporting role, make him change belts every minute or so, limit his aim a few degrees either way, and tell him his radioman needs to pee on the gun barrel if he wants to keep it from overheating.

I hated my brother.
posted by bondcliff at 11:16 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

My son and his neighbor friend used to set up elaborate scenes of death and destruction on our front sidewalk involving Army men, generic farm animal playsets (the ones with the green cows and blue sheep), plastic dinosaurs, Legos, and Hot Wheels cars. Kind of a hybrid WWIII and Demolition Derby. My motherly worries about their violent imaginations aside, those ever-changing scenarios were a creative sight to behold.
posted by amyms at 11:21 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

As I recall, my friend's set was loaded with boring riflemen in the standing, sitting and prone positions, some officers ready to be picked off by a sniper and just a few of the coolest Thompson submachine gun wielding soldiers who we took to be plastic incarnations of Vic Morrow. The object of our derision were these chubby, bent over guys toting a howitzer round who we delighted in crushing to death with tanks.
posted by digsrus at 11:22 AM on April 28, 2010

Alongside army men, I had these little plastic fantasy figures that appeared to have been made the same way. Those dudes were badass. Blue soldiers, wizards who were hollow beneath their robes, red lava men, orcs, and even two plastic dragons. I vaguely remember that they had some sort of plastic play mat that went with them.

Those guys were the grist of my growing nerdhood.

I wonder if they still make them?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:24 AM on April 28, 2010

Grenade? No.

Mortar round? No.




That's a maraca!
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:26 AM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I am sorry, but I don't get it.
All this talk about army men and no one mentions the kind I had??!?
(Bear with me, I graduated to being a military modeler and historian.)

I had the army men that were the same size and scale as the one's in the article (yes, the #1 guy is part of a mortar team), but the guys I had as a kid had detachable weapons molded in different colors. There were silver machine guns and sidearms (if you didn't lose them). They also had helmets, gas cans (?), one guy even had skis! Where are those???

All we see now are those one-piece cheap jobs.
posted by Drasher at 11:31 AM on April 28, 2010

Here's a 350 piece set ready for a new generation's fond memories of mass killing.
posted by longsleeves at 11:54 AM on April 28, 2010

Dead Army Men???

This is the first I've heard or seen them. Probably due to growing up on Air Force Bases in the 60's/70's.

and yes, these toys were imagination builders, period.
posted by djrock3k at 11:57 AM on April 28, 2010

Here's a 350 piece set ready for a new generation's fond memories of mass killing.

Gah. No. What an abomination. Though elsewhere on the page... here we go. That's the stuff.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 12:01 PM on April 28, 2010

I thought for sure William Calley would be on this list.

Me TOO! But I said to myself before I clicked the link, "but wouldn't it be cool if it was about those little green guys the boys got to play with?" Yay! It WAS!!!!

That is really funny, and really cool.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:02 PM on April 28, 2010

The dead guys, and the prone snipers, were the best. They were screaming victims of being ruthlessly crushed by tanks, tonka-trucks, Mego giants, or a "Me-Size Barbie" in a pinch (No Megos or trucks at Grammy's. The Star Wars guys there were too little for proper mayhem, but my cousin had an At-At, so we were back in business.)

This says nothing about me.
posted by Slap*Happy at 12:14 PM on April 28, 2010

Fifty years ago, there would probably be some stigma attached to an adult male writer who admitted that what little he knew of the military, he learned at the movies. Now, not even a trace.

That's probably a positive development.
posted by Dimpy at 12:16 PM on April 28, 2010

I thought this was going to be a takedown of the Army Men 3D series of videogames.
posted by d1rge at 12:16 PM on April 28, 2010

Though elsewhere on the page... here we go. That's the stuff.


I love that man in that British unit playing the bagpipes while everybody else blasts away with guns.
posted by longsleeves at 12:19 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Clearly the Geneva convention does not apply in Army Man world.
posted by Artw at 12:21 PM on April 28, 2010

I think my brother and I had little plastic army men as kids, but I remember the GI Joes more clearly. I didn't care about the army men themselves, but was more interested in their animals. Or I'd make hill-side hide-outs, not in preparation for some battle, but because I liked making little hidden homes.

When I did go into battle against my brother and his friend (I was older, so 2 vs 1 seemed fair), we'd spend a lot of time preparing for the battle of GI Joes, Ghost Busters, Thundercats, Silverhawks, and probably a few playmobile people with rifles. The battle itself would be short, as we started arguing over the details of force fields. Can you open a small portion to shoot the enemy, and if so, can the enemy then shoot you? I'm not sure if there were any confirmed casualties. Maybe if we had some pre-dead/injured army men, we would have planned battles resulting in the loss of a few green guys.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:21 PM on April 28, 2010

Durn Bronzefist .... Your link shows that the UK figures include a piper. Awesome!
posted by Jumpin Jack Flash at 12:24 PM on April 28, 2010

In a forest war is at its best when you are the sniper. Some of the best times I ever had as a kid were when my friends and I would set up elaborate small-scale fortifications in the woods behind my house, populate the fortifications with hundreds of our green army men, and then take turns picking them off with a BB gun. That, folks, is a god damned good time.

There's something wrong with little boys.
posted by Nothing... and like it at 11:07 AM on April 28


We made up a game where each turn you could advance or move one of your guys and then take a shot with a scoped .22 rifle from one of your guys position's (we only had one gun and would both be on the shooter's side during firing). It was very important to hide your green army men behind something substantial in our games.
posted by 445supermag at 12:25 PM on April 28, 2010

Shakes fist at longsleeves
posted by Jumpin Jack Flash at 12:26 PM on April 28, 2010

I would nominate the Army Man Getting Hit.
posted by smoothvirus at 12:35 PM on April 28, 2010

e'd spend a lot of time preparing for the battle of GI Joes, Ghost Busters, Thundercats, Silverhawks, and probably a few playmobile people with rifles.

Anyone else reading the awesome Joe The Barbarian?
posted by Artw at 12:42 PM on April 28, 2010

Shakes fist at longsleeves

You're supposed to shoot me, or bayonet me. Sheesh.
posted by longsleeves at 12:46 PM on April 28, 2010

OK, I'm home from work with a nasty head cold. But since there is nothing I won't do for Metafilter and Army Men, as a public service I took some snapshots on my back deck:

Mortar Guy with oversize mortar. There is a smaller two piece mortar that fits him better, but I'm missing one piece. Some little kid probably choked on it.

...being-blown-up-from-behind action pose... Here he is. A classic.

...being-blown-backward-by-something-exploding-in-front guy whose arms and legs were flailing forward... Yes, a major WTF figure of my childhood. Combined with this WTF guy, I finally figured it out 35 years later.

Here is sucking-chest-wound guy. Another view. On the secondary market these figures often have red paint smeared on them.

Another WTF pose: Constipated Guy. He came with the Ft. Apache sets. Urban legend has it he was originally going to be tied to a stake, but the toy company removed the stake because it might be too violent. I don't think that is too likely considering the carnage evident in these other guys.

Last but not least: Surrendering Japanese Soldier. Marx Toys only made one surrendering figure, and he's Japanese. (Not even a hand grenade hid behind his back). They did a whole set of WWII French guys, any surrendering? Nooo.

I go to Toy Soldier shows sometimes, and this is the kind of shit we sit around and talk about it. That and our girlfriends.

My previous post on Marx army men and playsets, which didn't get much love on Mefi.
posted by marxchivist at 12:53 PM on April 28, 2010 [28 favorites]

I recognize those dead "Guns of Navarone" guys from the Christmas my folks forgot to open the chimney flue, and the kids had to go upstairs to play in our rooms because the living room was smoked out.

I also remember that wounded green guy. He came with a stretcher team to carry him.

My favorite game of choice? Lining up my army men on the driveway, getting a spray can and a lighter.... GODZILLA!!!!. I was a fan of the original B+W, so all my melted guys who weren't green puddles had radiation burns.

That trick got me in all kinds of trouble.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:55 PM on April 28, 2010

Heh, I was just playing army men yesterday.

What...? It's part of my job!

Oh, and I vote grenade.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:58 PM on April 28, 2010

Combined with this WTF guy, I finally figured it out 35 years later.

When I was a little kid my family spent a weekend in a hotel on Cape Cod. During the night, I was awoken to some loud banging on the wall behind my bed. I asked my mom and dad what was going on but they told me to just go back to bed, that it would stop soon. The banging continued for about 20 minutes or so and then it stopped.

One day when I was in my 30's, out of the blue it hit me: some people on the other side of that wall were having sex! Holy crap I was seven years old and some dude was banging his girlfriend's head against the headboard mere inches from my face with only a thin wall between us! It was like a lightbulb had gone off; something that made no sense to me as a child was suddenly clear.

Now, you go and put Crazy Explody Guy on top of WTF Kung Fu Guy and I have that same feeling of SOMETHING SUDDENLY MAKING SENSE! Oh man, all these years of thinking the one guy was leaning over a radio and the other guy was doing karate! They're a set!

I guess as a kid it's hard to understand the things people do when they're together.
posted by bondcliff at 1:04 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

Drasher, it sounds like you had these MPC Ring Hand Soldiers, referenced above in marxchivist's comment.
posted by biddeford at 1:08 PM on April 28, 2010

BTW, I'm voting #1 is a member of a mortar team. He's this guy's partner. Because if that's a potato-masher grenade, he's the only green army guy carrying one.

That's why he's kneeling rather than standing. Look at his arm position. To me he looks much more like someone about to droop a mortar round down the tube than someone reaching back to lob a stick-grenade. Compare his position to this photo
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 1:09 PM on April 28, 2010

Dead guys? When I was a kid I thought they were just some dudes taking a nap.
posted by PBR at 1:09 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

BTW, I'm voting #1 is a member of a mortar team. He's this guy's partner.

Nope, sorry. #1 is by Marx Toys. The "this guy" is a Tim-Mee figure, originally from the late 1960's and cloned forever and ever up until this day. Thank god ya'll are finally talking about something I know about.
posted by marxchivist at 1:12 PM on April 28, 2010 [2 favorites]

plastic fantasy figures

Ooh, you know what would be awesome? Dune soldiers. Fremen, Imperial Sardaukar, etc. Not painted and bright but plastic mold characters in the style of old army men. That would rock.

I love that man in that British unit playing the bagpipes while everybody else blasts away with guns.
Your link shows that the UK figures include a piper. Awesome!

See, it's so not just about the guns. That dude is awesome. I wonder where my spotter is now...
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:14 PM on April 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

So either the guy is a really scared mortar-loader (one handed and backing away?) or he's a grenadier who doesn't know the first thing about getting good leverage for a toss (no need to choke up so much).

Or maybe he's some dude who just found an exploded round and he's just getting read to toss it away?
posted by P.o.B. at 2:05 PM on April 28, 2010

This conversation about #1 will be so embarassing when the first chicken-leg-weilding psy-ops soldiers go into the field against future America's Buddhist foe.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 2:16 PM on April 28, 2010

I played with army ants as a kid. they glowed in the dark.
posted by joelf at 2:43 PM on April 28, 2010

Man, my kids would make up epic battles with rows upon rows, just legions of these guys, and tanks and helicopter and jeeps and the little raft boat things (we had a blue carpet, which, when it wasn't LAVA, became the ocean as the troops stormed Normandy).

I'd go around the house and find crawling guy on the refrigerator or telephone guy on top of the spice cabinet, watching over us.

My sons also had a hand-carved fort that their great-grandfather made, where all the troops bivouacked when they weren't fighting. Good times.
posted by misha at 2:47 PM on April 28, 2010

#1 is one of the rare mortar tossers. They didn't realize they could launch the mortars until the next set came out.
posted by drezdn at 5:30 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Alternatively, #1 is the model rocketry enthusiast.
posted by drezdn at 5:31 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I to had the Guns of Navarone play set. Every now and then Mazinga would factor into the battles.
posted by Sailormom at 5:34 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Okay, admit it, how many of you used a can of lighter fluid as a 'flamethrower' to melt some of those poor little plastic bastards?

On another note, these guys now always remind me of Stephen King's short story, Battleground.
posted by bwg at 5:45 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

PBR: "Dead guys? When I was a kid I thought they were just some dudes taking a nap."

.
posted by bwg at 5:46 PM on April 28, 2010

I always liked the minesweeper fellow, who was the army man equivalent of the little chariot seat on the carousel. Somebody had to like it. The detector unit was on a thin strand of plastic so it could bend and twist around all weird. Great until it fell off.
posted by Spatch at 5:50 PM on April 28, 2010

Great until it fell off.

Then he would take on a new role as mole hunter.
posted by drezdn at 7:13 PM on April 28, 2010

Dead guys? When I was a kid I thought they were just some dudes taking a nap.

If you prop them up against the wall of their miniature buildings they look like they´re taking a leak.
posted by concrete at 8:48 PM on April 28, 2010

Doesn't this guy know that the guy on the radio is calling in for air support?! How is that not cool? 5 seconds later and someone's gonna swoop in and drop a bomb. Explosives trump guns.

It's almost as if the kid had no imagination. It doesn't matter to most kids what the mortar guy was actually supposed to be. It took me 3 seconds to imagine him pulling the pin on a grenade, running straight towards an enemy machine-gun box, and sliding on his knees while dodging bullets and tossing that grenade right into the box.

And I have a soft spot for the minesweeper, seeing as that was my grandfather's job in the war. In any case, if you didn't like him, he's a perfect target for a bouncing betty, which makes him cool in the same way that the dead guys are.

This guy doesn't know how to play with army men. Kids those days.
posted by ErWenn at 9:08 PM on April 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

marxchivist: "OK, I'm home from work with a nasty head cold. But since there is nothing I won't do for Metafilter and Army Men, as a public service I took some snapshots on my back deck:

My previous post on Marx army men and playsets, which didn't get much love on Mefi."

Your username just got a whole lot cooler.
posted by Mitheral at 9:42 AM on April 29, 2010