Recently I played in my sixth Invasion of Normandy paintball event at Skirmish USA in Jim Thorpe, PA. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association estimates that over 5.4 million people played the game in the United States in 2007.  It is the wildest, most insane and self-indulgent thing I do. One of my brother-in-laws talked me into this in 2004 and I have not missed one since. 

 

It is a re-enactment of D-Day and the landing at Normandy that starts on Saturday and ends on Sunday at 1:00 PM. This year 3,500 paintballers played (several hundred more would have played, but they have to limit the number due to the camping facility and infrastructure). Half represent the Allied forces and the rest the Axis side.  It is a true team sport where you depend on your comrades to cover and help you, not much different from our test teams at RTTS.

 

At noon on Saturday the Allied forces are placed in plywood replica troop carriers and all of the Axis players are over 100 yards away in the woods. Once a siren sounds, the plywood door drops and you, along with 100’s of teammates race out to face thousand of paintballs flying through the air.   If you don’t immediately get a face full of paint, you spend the next 45 minutes trying to break through the tree line by sprinting from pallet to pallet, barrel to barrel or mound to mound just in front of the tree line. The fun lasts until you run out of compressed air or pods filled with paintballs or until you can’t stand from exhaustion.

This year was the first that I got to experience breaking through the tree line with my teammates. It took a trip back to our camp site for my group and I to reload and rehydrate and about a dozen direct hits to my body.

And it is rewarding to win the battle.  Teammates (who you've never met) must come together as a group and support each other, communicate through verbal and non-verbal ways and ultimately work towards and achieve a common goal.  In the end, it's just like our software teams!

 

After the first battle,  which lasts a couple of hours, is won, the rest of the event is free-format. You insert at one end of the field and roam around until you find a fight to engage in. There are no rules to the free format except when it hurts too badly you leave the field of battle. My favorite part is making an enemy player run away or when I hit them so badly they raise their gun and retreat. Of course there is a price to pay and sometimes I was the one running away.  Although I had over 50 welts and I could barely walk on Monday morning, I can’t wait to do it again next year. 

If you would like to learn more about this event visit www.skirmish.com or visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMJRkT4QGbg to see a video of the fun.

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