It was the middle of the Cold War. We lived near an Air Force base, and basically knew we'd be one of the thousands of targets during a nuclear attack.

My friend Bobby and I were playing army. We started out with the same amount of green plastic army guys. We both got 44, because it was a bag of 88. I put a big M on the backs of my guys, he left his blank. After separating the sack, we both got busy setting up our men on opposite sides of the living room.

There was a one foot zone where no army men could be placed. Our own kind of DMZ. A détente before the storm, so to speak. In about fifteen minutes, we had opposing armies set to kill each other.

Our ammunition consisted of rubber bands. Being experienced rubber band shooters, this made the most sense. We couldn't let the war be decided by fake bullets, there had to be some kind of skill involved. So the plan was to shoot rubber bands from positions of our own army men at army men on the other side. Trading fire or moving with each turn.

We were both rather skilled at picking off each other. It took about an hour for there to be only about five army men left on each side.

"What if I had a draft in my country and filled up my side again?" Bobby asked. A fair question. We both decided to have drafts and fill up our respective armies numbers.

Another hour went by and our armies had been decimated once again. There seemed to be no winner, since we were both very efficient at picking off the opposite side.

"Are you trying to take over my country, or am I trying to take over yours?" Bobby wondered.

"I think we're fighting over land that doesn't belong to anyone."

This was not really true. The land belonged to my mom. She lorded over the living room most of the time. She was gone, though. And Mom's rule was outside the world we'd created for this war, so we went with the fight over unoccupied lands.

A few hours later, we'd offed close to 500 army men on both sides. Filling and then refilling our numbers with each draft.

"How are we going to decide who wins?" I asked, after repositioning my new draftees for the umpteenth time.

Bobby sat and thought about it for a second. He looked at his watch. He had one of those cool Pac Man watches that told time and let you play Pac Man. He was much cooler than me. My watch just had a stopwatch on it.

"You remember Godzilla?" he asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

He didn't answer, just stood up, walked over to my side of the living room, started screaming, picking up my army men and throwing them down to the ground. He stomped on them, stuck a few in his mouth and then spit them out.

"Then I'm King Kong!" I said.

I went over to his side, roared my little boy roar and began to decimate the enemy. In a few minutes, the living room was one big mess of broken army men, pillows and overturned furniture.

We both were giggling. The destruction was fun.

"So who won?" I asked.

"I don't know, but I gotta go home." And he left.

I lay in the middle of the floor for a few minutes, surveying the damage from the ground. Mom was going to be home soon. I had to clean up.

We didn't play army men much after that. There didn't seem to be much point. No one ever won, and the best time was just throwing the army guys around the room like a natural disaster.

Since then, I'd say the pointlessness of war has been rather apparent to me. I guess the Prez wasn't any good at shooting rubber bands, or he'd realize it's not about how good you are at killing people. It's about knowing you could kill people and deciding to find some other way to resolve your differences.

Of course, I never got to manipulate a real army. I've never had real blood on my hands. Maybe it's different.

But I'd assume, when it's for real, you'd think harder about these things.

Matt Worley is a good shot.