September 19, 2012--SEAL for a Day
Disneyworld not working for you anymore? Tired of reality shows such as Survivor? You find the NFL too tame? If so, and you have a spare $325, head for the Sealed Mindset Gun Range in New Hope, Minnesota, put your hands on a modified AR-15 assault rife, and you can pretend to be a Navy SEAL on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The real one, of course, is sleeping with the fishes; but at Sealed Mindset, they'll supply you with a fake Osama outfitted with a long white robe, head scarf, and phony black beard.
I'm not making this up. Check the story about it in the New York Times.
In a renovated warehouse in suburban Minneapolis, the Sealed Mindset folks have created a maze of rooms that are supposed to simulate Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. Like real SEALs, participants begin by getting a briefing about what to expect and then practice by running through the maze, shooting paintballs at cardboard cutout Bin Ladens.
Then they are ready for the "real" thing--Beau Doboszenski, the Sealed Mindset employee who dresses up like the real real-thing.
The setup has speakers in every room and there is a loud soundtrack of screaming SEAL "teammates" and relentless gunfire. "It was definitely an adrenaline rush," reports Nathan Schneider, a 26-year-old blender salesman for Vitamix.
The one clearly ahistorical element has Doboszenski-bin-Laden armed with and firing a Glock 17 handgun. It makes the experience "real," participants report, though Bin Laden himself back in Abbottabad was unarmed.
The Sealed Mindset staff know their clients (so far more than 70 of them, including quite a few married couples)--so therefore even if they have faulty aim and don't manage to hit the ersatz Bin Laden, he's trained to take a dive as if the faux-SEALs got him right between eyes.
I guess people such as Mr. Schnieder, if they want the real thing, could enlist in the Army or Navy. I'm not, however, holding my breath.
The real one, of course, is sleeping with the fishes; but at Sealed Mindset, they'll supply you with a fake Osama outfitted with a long white robe, head scarf, and phony black beard.
I'm not making this up. Check the story about it in the New York Times.
In a renovated warehouse in suburban Minneapolis, the Sealed Mindset folks have created a maze of rooms that are supposed to simulate Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. Like real SEALs, participants begin by getting a briefing about what to expect and then practice by running through the maze, shooting paintballs at cardboard cutout Bin Ladens.
Then they are ready for the "real" thing--Beau Doboszenski, the Sealed Mindset employee who dresses up like the real real-thing.
The setup has speakers in every room and there is a loud soundtrack of screaming SEAL "teammates" and relentless gunfire. "It was definitely an adrenaline rush," reports Nathan Schneider, a 26-year-old blender salesman for Vitamix.
The one clearly ahistorical element has Doboszenski-bin-Laden armed with and firing a Glock 17 handgun. It makes the experience "real," participants report, though Bin Laden himself back in Abbottabad was unarmed.
The Sealed Mindset staff know their clients (so far more than 70 of them, including quite a few married couples)--so therefore even if they have faulty aim and don't manage to hit the ersatz Bin Laden, he's trained to take a dive as if the faux-SEALs got him right between eyes.
I guess people such as Mr. Schnieder, if they want the real thing, could enlist in the Army or Navy. I'm not, however, holding my breath.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
6:01 AM
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