And You Thought Your Town Was a Teenage Wasteland

From the way these posts are going, people are going to start assuming I'm a Polish nationalist or something. I swear, it is just the way that things have been distributing themselves. As far as I know, I have no Polish ancestry (the same could not be said of my wife and daughter).

A friend of mine sent me link to a new role-playing game (RPG) called Grey Ranks. The name is a reference to the members of the Polish Boy Scouts who became a very effective underground network and insurgent fighting force in WWII. The game is centered around the Warsaw Rising in 1944. Players take on the role of one of the child-soldiers of the Home Army as they try to take control of the Polish capital, removing the Nazis before the arrival of Soviet troops from the East. What was intended to 4-5 day operation instead stretched for 63 days as the Soviet advance stalled (some say deliberately stopped) outside the city. Help from the Western Allies was also minimal. The Polish Parachute Brigade, who had been training to help in the Uprising, were instead committed to Montgomery's over-reaching Operation Market Garden in Holland.

I haven't gotten a chance to play the new game from Bully Pulpit Games. It looks to have a large touch of soap-opera or anime high-school drama and tension layered on top of the military grimness. The result looks a bit like TFOS meets The Longest Day, only much less cheerful. One of the testimonials from a play-tester said:

"Grey Ranks ... was fun, if you can call driving yourself to madness and serial killing from the sewers of WWII-ravaged Poland after your girlfriend refuses to have your baby aborted, then gets killed fun. Which I do." - Rob Bohl

That sounds a little crass, or bloodthirsty, or something. But it also shows, once again, that these people, were real people. Real people in amazing, horrifying situations, but still just kids.

Could I do what they did? Could my children? I'd like to think they could if they had to. I truly hope they never come close to needing to find out.