Little Green Army Men

When I was a boy I remember watching many World War Two movies with my folks. I was too young to understand the reality of what I was watching, but I do remember enjoying the action; the firefights, the bursting bombs, the enemy being ousted from their positions, and the gun hoe GI’s gaining ground and pushing the enemies of civilization back to hell (I didn’t think about this aspect back then, I just added it now to be dramatic).

My very first experience with army men, that I remember, was when I was about five year old. I had seen an ad in some magazine and remember cutting the ad out and keeping it under my pillow. (This is what I did with things that meant something to me back then.) The ad advertised what I thought was a large chest of army men. I don’t remember, exactly, but I believe it contained something like a 100 toy soldiers, and it was advertised for something like $2.50; a princely sum, for a boy, back in the early sixties.

I saved my birthday money and whatever change I could scrounge off of my parents and when I had enough for the package, It was sent for. When the package arrived, I remember being sorely disappointed. The chest was a cardboard chest and didn’t look anything like the supposed large chest I was expecting.

The box contained 100 smaller than normal arm men, who usually were between two and three inches high. There are cast in a hard plastic and were about an inch high (As far as I can remember). I wish I still had these, they might be worth something now, however at the time I was let down, and although they got some play time, the soldiers did not get all that much attention being inferior in every way to the normal green army men.

I always had green plastic army men in my toy chest and they were often were employed in skirmishes and battles with the enemy. Most of the fun was had outside, outside of my bedroom window, where there was a mound of ground that refused to sprout grass. This is where my army dug their fox holes and where the battles were fought.

After viewing a war movie that included a scene with paratroopers exiting an airplane I set up my own regiment of paratroopers, with small parachutes made of tissue paper that was tied to each toy solider with four pieces of string (or was it thread). I remember issuing my paratroopers, after issuing the order to “gear-up”, from my second story the window, and to my fright watched them fall straight to the ground; the parachutes failed to deploy. When I got down stairs I found all was well. No one suffered any broken bones and more importantly none of my green army men were mangled in any way.

Oh, the hours that were spent using my imagination, being in my own little world, and inventing new scenarios for battles that would ultimately win the war. Oh, if it was that simple, the mind of a child in all its simplicity could change the world. We should all play more and hate less.

All of that said just because I visited the Army Men Homepage. The Army Men page which describes the low cost green army men that many of us played with when we were boys. (Could I venture to say, girls too?) It would be interesting to see how many women could comment on this, did you play with green army men as a girl?

The page goes on to define and describe these little green army men and clarifies the differences between miniatures and the mass produced green army men. The page goes further and describes the accessories that might have come with these army men. Like the soft plastic military vehicles, (The green army men might have been pretty rugged, but the vehicles were not. They were often cast very thinly and were very flimsy) and the alternative types of army men like the cow boys and Indians and the roman warriors. Each toy soldier type was produced in a different color, but pretty much in the same height of the green army men.

You will find a great deal of links at the end of the page that you might find interesting. Check them out. If you haven’t visited this site yet, it offers a basic treatise on the subject and is worth the visit. If nothing else the page will bring back memories.