On the way home from the MU last Wednesday, I met a friend and we chatted a bit. He asked me if I had gotten COD yet.

At first I honestly thought he was talking about fish.

But no. He was talking about the new video game, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” which was released Nov. 10, the day before we celebrate Veterans Day.

Everyone thinks this game is great, it currently rates 95/100 on Metacritic.com, and so they’re all probably right.

But something else that’s great happened on Veterans Day at Iowa State — the Gold Star Hall Ceremony, held in the Memorial Union’s Great Hall.

Seven ISU alumni who had fought and died in American wars were remembered and celebrated at the event.

They were real heroes. One person participated in Operation Market Garden in World War II, freeing up bridges into Germany in what remains today the largest airborne operation of all time.

Another served in Vietnam on a special infantry team that encountered the enemy in all sorts of bad places — jungles, marshes, rice paddies and other locales that are difficult to slough through. And five more men fought and died in the infamous Iron Triangle during the Korean War.

My point isn’t that war shouldn’t be in video games, or that these video games make individuals any worse for playing them.

I only argue that we must always make the time to truly appreciate our men and women in the armed forces. They deserve it.

As an interesting aside, Activision Blizzard, the publisher company behind the “Call of Duty” games, has created the “Call of Duty Endowment” to help unemployed veterans find careers after their military service. A portion of the new video game’s proceeds is reported to go to this endowment as well. To learn more, check out the Call of Duty Endowment.