Sometimes a soldier will get into trouble because of his or her love for gaming. One very recent example is Prince Harry, who got into a great deal of hot water for stating that games helped improve his accuracy on the battlefield. Though the fact that he's such a high profile personality is the primary reason for the particular bit of controversy.
Then you have the fellow above, an as of yet unidentified French legionnaire in the West African nation of Mali. He's in a great deal of trouble as well, but it's not what he's said or done, but simply how he's dressed. Does his mask ring a bell at all? Yup, he looks like Ghost, from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. And that's the problem.
Kotaku reports that members of the French military, along with the French press, are outraged by the image, taken by an AFP photographer a few days ago. French Colonel Thierry Burkhard was cited as saying that the wearing of the mask was "unacceptable behavior" and "not representative of the action that brought France to Mali to help."
As a result, there is now a hunt to find out the identity of this unknown solider, who will thusly be reprimanded, or worse, be made an example. It's worth nothing, as Kotaku did in their write-up as well, that the useage of skull imagery by soldiers is hardly new, and definitely pre-dates the game in question.
Though most telling of all is the reaction of photographer responsible for the picture, who is taken aback by the controversy. Issouf Sanogo explains what promoted the soldier to cover his face in the first place; it was due to a land helicopter that was churning up a ton of dust:
"… Instinctively, all the soldiers grabbed their scarfs to avoid getting a mouthful of sand. It was evening, and rays of sunlight were pushing through the trees and into the dust clouds. It was a lovely light. I spotted this soldier wearing a strange scarf and took the photo. At the time, nothing about the scene seemed especially unusual or shocking. The soldier wasn't posing and there was nothing staged about the image. He was just standing there, protecting his face from the dust, waiting for the chopper to land. No one tried to stop me shooting the picture."
