Immersion Blog

Meet Staff Sgt Matt Zedwick, the only living recipient of the Silver Star in the Oregon National Guard. The picture above shows him as he appears in “America’s Army”, the video game and recruiting tool;

Launched on July 4th 2002, America’s Army is an innovative PC action game that provides young adults with an inside perspective and a virtual role in today’s high-tech Army.  Through the America’s Army game, players can take a virtual “test drive” of Soldiering in the U.S. Army from basic training to the battlefield in the Global War on Terrorism.

Zedwick won the Silver Star and Purple Heart when he pulled his squad leader and another buddy from their burning Humvee, when it was hit by an IED. Here’s a picture of him on active duty in Iraq;

The America’s Army Real Heroes® program spotlights the “accomplishments of soldiers who have distinguished themselves in combat”. The America’s Army game places soldiering “front and center within popular culture and showcases the high-tech, team-oriented and values-driven nature of the Army,” says Col. Casey Wardynski, originator of the America’s Army game. Since its debut, the America’s Army program has registered more than 8.5 million users in over 60 countries, and expanded to include console and cell-phone games, the Real Heroes program and the Virtual Army Experience. The game has been downloaded more than 40 million times, and players have spent more than 200 million hours, or 3.5 billion rounds of play, experiencing life as soldiers.

Jazwares worked closely with the army to produce a line of action figures celebrating the Real Heroes. Each action figure includes a Real Heroes trading card highlighting the soldier’s accomplishments and their “Warrior Ethos,” which says a soldier will always place the mission first, never accept defeat, never quit, and never leave a fallen comrade. The figures have “authentic uniforms, weapons and unit insignias”. The action figure line launched to coincide with the release of America’s Army: True Soldiers for Xbox 360. Here’s Matt Zedwick’s action figure;

This Christmas, Matt Zedwick was chosen to appear in a Real Heroes edition of “Deal or No Deal”, the dumbest game show in the history of television. The America’s Army Real Heroes® web site reports;

Staff Sergeant Matthew Zedwick, one of four U.S. Army Soldiers initially chosen for the America’s Army Real Heroes program, chose present number 6 to begin his quest for the one million dollar prize. For this special Christmas episode of Deal or No Deal, the briefcases usually holding the dollar amounts, were replaced with gift wrapped boxes.

SSG Zedwick began the first round in which he had to select 6 presents to be eliminated from the field. His very first selection, present number 11, was opened to reveal the $1,000,000 value. While this was a bit of a let down, SSG Zedwick moved forward and, round-by-round, eliminated many of the boxes that contained the lower values.

Along the way, some of the presents also held the names of Santa’s reindeer. The show’s host, Howie Mandel, explained that if Zedwick located all nine reindeer before he was given his final offer, he would win an additional $25,000.

SSG Zedwick was eventually left with presents 18, 20 and 24, plus his initial selection, present number 6. These gifts represented values of $400, $10,000, $400,000 and $500,000. The mysterious Banker called Howie and made an offer of $202,000 for Zedwick’s present.

After a few anxious moments, with half the audience screaming “No Deal” and the rest yelling “Deal”, SSG Zedwick slapped the red button on the podium and shouted, “DEAL”, winning $202,000 plus the additional $25,000 for finding all nine of Santa’s reindeer, for a whopping $227,000!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 8:43 pm and is filed under Branded/sponsored content, Video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.