A U.S. military newspaper recently published an article on soldiers leaving their base in Afghanistan, which happened to have a large Pokémon Go community.
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U.S. forces evacuated Bagram, one of the largest military bases in Afghanistan, on Friday as reported by U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes (thanks Eurogamer). According to the paper “Bagram once had a thriving Pokémon Go community of troops, contractors and civilians who played the game while exercising and after work.”
The game apparently gave civilians and soldiers alike a chance to socialise, with contractor Wilbur Landaverde saying: “Being able to start a conversation with a complete stranger in the middle of a war zone about something like Pokémon was a great way to stay social,”
Bagram base was handed back to the Afghan government on July 1 as part of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Alaska National Guard captain John Sutter battled a Voltorb on the base, to which he told Stars and Stripes “I thought…. ‘(we) can’t have no IED Pokémon on the FOB,’”
The report adds that “a tiny Lotad has defended the former Warrior Chapel at Bagram for 10 days, while a lowly Aron has defended a memorial to a fallen service member for about two weeks.”
Sutter told the paper he thinks someone will take control of his gym at Bagram, if that isn’t already the case. “I’m sure somewhere in Afghanistan, some kid is bragging about how he took control of an American Pokémon gym,”
Sutter added: “Maybe in 20 years I can ride a motorcycle south and reclaim that Pokémon gym again”.
In other news, someone decided to build Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart in Dreams, complete with character models that look almost identical to the original.
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