Airsoft is a military simulation game in which players equip themselves with the same uniforms and gear – shooting plastic BBs – that are currently used by military personnel and security contractors worldwide. These images were taken while accompanying an airsoft team called the Green Mountain Rangers at a two day Airsoft event held at The Fort Drum U.S. Military MOUT CTF center on November 8-9th, 2008.

Airsoft Statement:

…no two things are more discordant and incongruous than a civil and military life. Hence we daily see that when a man goes into the army, he immediately changes not only his dress, but his behavior, his company, his air, his manner of speaking, and that he affects to throw off all appearances of anything that may look like ordinary life and conversation… This…makes people look upon a soldier as a creature different from all other men.

Niccolo Machiavelli
Art of War 1592

Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant reality; they are also dress rehearsals, plans. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination.

Barbera Grizzuti Harrison

Starting in February 2007 I began photographing a group of men that belong to a team called the Green Mountain Rangers. The Green Mountain Rangers, or GMR, are from the North Eastern United States and they participate in a tactical activity called airsoft – a military simulation game first created in Japan during the late 70s. Due to Japan's strict anti-gun laws, gun and military model enthusiasts were unable to purchase firearms; instead they created gas and battery powered weapons that fired small plastic BBs. The term airsoft describes the effect and type of projectiles fired from these weapons.
Eventually airsoft developed into a military simulation game in which players attempt to recreate scenarios from contemporary conflict. Airsoft players equip themselves with the exact same gear and uniforms that are currently used by military personal and security contractors worldwide, using weapons that are highly realistic. They buy much of their equipment through the Internet from military suppliers and EBay.
The Green Mountain Rangers are extremely dedicated – they devote a serious amount of personal time to airsoft. There are about twelve members on the team, or "unit" as they prefer to call it, all from different social, economic, and political backgrounds. The majority of the team members have no official military training, though two are currently serving in the United States Army National Guard and Reserves. These two members have completed multiple combat tours in Iraq and are likely to be called up to active duty on future deployments.
In their day jobs the civilian members of GMR have careers in business, law enforcement, the creative arts, or are enrolled in higher education. The ethnic makeup of the team is Caucasian and Asian, ranging in age from twenty-one to forty. Some of the unit members are married with children, while others are in ongoing relationships. The political background of the team members range from conservative to liberal, with Baptist, Catholic, or agnostic religious beliefs. Their shared mutual interests other than airsoft consist of all things military: martial arts, video gaming, firearms, and military model making.
GMR expend a lot of effort on training and planning for large-scale airsoft events. During the time I have been photographing the Green Mountain Rangers I have accompanied them during team practice sessions on Long Island and in Western Massachusetts; at urban combat training centers at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Drum New York; and during a four-day event on an island off the coast of Sweden with over 2,000 participants from around the world.
While photographing The Green Mountain Rangers I have come to believe that they are part of a larger cultural shift. While our society continues to perpetuate and maintain itself in a state of constant war, a significant portion of the population engages frequently in fantasy and game play, separate from economic constraints, and emboldened to consume and operate in a state free of global responsibility. At the same time the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on and security and defense spending in this country has grown to levels not seen since World War II.
Within this context, it is perhaps not surprising that the Green Mountain Rangers engage in the fantasy of war games where violence is controlled, no one is killed and the participants remain unscarred by their actions. This intersection – of the wider reality of the state of the country, the playing out of fantasy, and the nature of obsession – is what truly interests me.