looking for a gift idea for a 14 year old

[dooya]

Does the boy play chess? If not, buy him a chess board and a good introduction. Best wargame ever.

[bean5671]

chess

I am a member at icc and my son plays there as well, not sure if my nephew does or not
that is a good idea

[JudgeDredd]

bean5671

Just wanted to thank you for reminding me about this series. I have it on VHS, but they're in the loft and too "bulky" to have downstairs, so I've now bought the DVD set for £27. [:D]

Happy chappy and bring on the best, most informative WWII documentary ever made (and with an awesome narrator also!)

[kaybayray]

As a Father of 6 kids that controls internet access and TV time I recommend getting the History DVD's. Unless his parents are mindless anti-American lemmings orbiting Neptune they wont whine once they realize that the series is about the Real World History. The graphic story of how we came to still have Freedom, Liberty and Justice in this world. The story of how a generation refused to be put in a box and crushed and rose up against murderous facisim.

I think their major objection to a lot of TV time is the mindless programmed crud that is pandered by the popular media as "Entertainment". TV programming like, American Idol, MTV and the remainder of Human Debris that is paraded across our living rooms in the form of "Reality TV".

Just my thoughts but from my perspective I would be absolutely flaberghasted to walk into my living room and find one of my teens actually watching anything about History that wasnt produced by the MTV crowd. So get them for him. Who knows, he may just start taking notice of Grandpa and Grandma and ther rest of his family of that generation and start asking some questions. OMG he might actually learn how to us the "T" word... Think..

Later,
KayBay

[killroyishere]

Memoir 44 is better than Axis and Allies. If I were a kid again that's what I would want.

[JudgeDredd]

Seconded Memoir '44 - great little game.

[Adam Parker]

Hi Bean,

Looking at all the advice here has actually let me wonder what I would do in your position or would want if back at the age of 14. This is really a fine age when the mind is expanding - and pretty much like a sponge, will start to soak up anything and everything conceptually with ease.

I remember at this age being given a Tamiya model catalgoue by my parents. It was a life changing moment. These were the days when the catalogue was written pretty much like an encyclopedia. Each tank or model had a wordy history written about it and the amount of detail just oozed itself into my cranium. I couldn't get enough. I just wanted to read and read as much fine print as I could. Those were great days.

Anyway, what I've concluded is that at your Nephew's age, any book you buy can become the basis of a life long love in military history. So I would lavish him with something special or unique in this regard:

Book Recommendation: Panzer Truppen Vol 1 and 2 - Jentz, the foremost exposure to the make up and role of the German Panzer forces around. Heaps and heaps of minutae to endulge in, lots and lots to direct further reading towards and a coverage of every area in the European Theatre of Operations.

Book Recommendation: Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - Shirer, a book to treasure through life. Maybe a challenging read to start with at 14 but why restrict potential? A wonderful way to begin a study in the geopolitics and strategies of WW2, a real page turner.

Board Game Recommendation: Memoir 44 - Days of Wonder, as others have suggested. Just start with the basic game and add modules for future celebrations. Its a real gem covering the whole war now.

PC Wargame Recommendation: The new Operation Barbarossa to be released this week by Matrix, looks to be an exciting, easy to learn, hard to master goer for someone wishing to witness the Russian Front. I'm sure to be expanded into the West later.

So I hope all this, together the W@W DVD suggestion helps you some more.

Best wishes,
Adam.

[junk2drive]

I've played Memoir 44 too and my nephew bought it because he had a young son. Not a bad game for adults IMO.

You just might turn out to be that weird uncle that saves him from the dark side, lol.

[105mm Howitzer]

Hi Bean, if he's got a computer, get him the WaW dvd, he can still view them from his pc. Memoir 44 and expansion packs, great for those together times a well. My cousin's hubby went to P U School of Law. Doing fine in NTC now, the bum . [8D]

[jackx]

I'm a bit worried about anything that is big on technical detail/minutiae, and thus also fairly clinical and detached. Mainly because it's addictive, and over that addiction, it's easy to forgot the wider context of the war in which that equipment was used, and its effect on human beings. That's a balancing act for anyone, and probably really tricky with a kid.

I have a half-brother, who's only 12, but really into WW2 submarines and planes, and it's a tough job to decide what he should, and shouldn't be watching/reading yet. He has seen "Das Boot" (TV/stereo only, so not that scary), which I thought was a bad idea, but it might've just been the right thing to give him a basic idea that those things weren't just fancy toys and pieces of engineering, like those steam locomotives he's also in love with...


not much of a suggestion I'm afraid, just some general thoughts/rant on the subject based on recent personal experience. My apologies.

[SlickWilhelm]

Basing this on my own experience as a young lad wanting to learn more about WWII, I would recommend getting him the WaW DVD set. Each episode is about 50 mins long(except the first), so this should fall under the "acceptable" category his mom has decreed.

Or, he could do as I did back in the late 19070's: get up late at night after the parents went to sleep and watch the series with the volume on very low. [8D]

Just don't get caught.

[Larac]

I fear for kids that are held so hard it hurts them, many are so overwhelmed when they get away from home, they screw up in huge ways.

What ever you get him include a note to call you if he needs someone to talk to.

That might be the best you can do for him, in the long run.

GL

Lee

[junk2drive]

ORIGINAL: jackx

He's only 14... so I'd say no to any war movie recommendations. They're either too gory, or glorifying war, or a mixture of both (or white-washing the Wehrmacht, but I guess you're clear of that danger, being in the US...).
Probably shouldn't be alone watching some of the documentaries, either, better if he can talk to someone about it, and if he's really curious about/interested in WW2, he'll have a truckload of questions...

The WaW dvds seem a good choice, and you could probably use them as a starting point for a responsible/educational media use debate... probably better to get the parents on board, than to circumvent them via the portable DVD player...

I guess it just comes down to using your judgement as to what the kid can, and cannot handle.

Wife and I are watching a video series on You Tube, Vietnam War The Impact of Media. Seeing the old TV news footage and noting the dates, I remembered that I turned 14 in 1967. That year, in Junior high, my history teacher was a young black man with a nice Afro, who had survived his TOD in Vietnam. I don't recall him being biased but we talked about the news of the day daily including the war. We watched the 6 o'clock news with our parents. I sweated over the draft for the next 5 years.

I think most kids can handle a lot.

[jackx]

Yeah, I suppose so. At least I'd like to think that the wars in former Yugoslavia and Chechnya haven't had any negative long-term effects on me.
Of course, parents/other adults being there to talk to and to monitor the situation helps a lot.

I think I was overreacting a bit because of all the WW2 stuff my younger brother watches/reads atm, and the quite heavy bias of alot of it, more so than the graphic/gruesome nature of some of it.

[Doggie]

Girls Gone Wild wouild make you the kewlest Dad ever.

[Jeffrey H.]

heh...for a 14 year old boy it would....