Veterans want Pokemon to go away from war memorials
Aficionados of popular game urged to stay away from war monuments
Since launching in Canada last month, Pokemon Go has become a nationwide phenomenon.
But Pokemon trainers have drawn the outrage of politicians and members of Canada’s military for hunting “pocket monsters” at war memorials.
Veterans Affairs Canada posted a tweet on Saturday asking those playing the popular game to “Please be respectful and refrain from playing Pokemon Go when visiting Canadian War Cemeteries & Memorials.”
Minister of Veterans Affairs and Calgary MLA Kent Hehr retweeted the plea, asking Canadians to “Please be respectful.”
Calgary has many war memorials throughout the city, almost all of which are Pokemon attractions.
Central Memorial Park is the city’s largest, with three Pokestops at separate memorials, including the cenotaph, where veterans and the public gather every Remembrance Day.
A nearby fountain overlooking the cenotaph is a Pokemon Gym, where players gather to do battle with other gamers.
As local veterans gathered in Calgary for National Peacekeepers Day on Sunday, some echoed the call for the memorials to be left as places of remembrance.
“You don’t hide a Pokemon Go creature behind a monument,” said retired Lt.-Col. Rick Wright of the Canadian Association of Veterans in United Nations Peacekeeping (CAVUNP).
“That’s part of the problem: most people don’t understand what a memorial is, they think it’s a hunk of concrete,” Wright said. “If you don’t have the background knowledge, you have no idea. To me, that’s one of the faults of the education system.”
Pokestops and gyms are places, generally landmarks, where Pokemon Go players can resupply items or pit their creatures against each other in battle.
Memorials at Garrison Green — including Peacekeepers Park, where Sunday’s sombre ceremony took place, and Buffalo Park — are also Pokestops, as well as the placards placed on street corners named after veterans of Canada’s peacekeeping operations.
Wright said some of the fault lies with video game company Niantic, the developers of the popular game, for failing to know the significance of some landmarks.
The sister of one fallen Calgary soldier agrees wholeheartedly with Wright.
Trish Hammond’s brother, Master Cpl. Raymond Arndt, was killed while serving in Afghanistan in 2006.
“I would like it to be left as a memorial, not a playground,” Hammond said.
“It’s a sombre place, right? You come here, you remember, you reflect. I think it should be left as something like that.”
This is not the first time a Pokemon problem has been reported at Calgary monuments.
Last month, Pokemon players upset members of Calgary’s Jewish community by frequently visiting the Ashes to Life memorial, a sculpture honouring Holocaust victims outside the Jewish Community Centre in Calgary’s southwest.
Much like the cenotaph and Peacekeepers Park, the Ashes to Life memorial is also a designated Pokestop.
Memorials in the United States have also been plagued by Pokemon players. The U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Arlington National Cemetery have previously asked visitors to refrain from hunting Pokemon while visiting the monuments.
For Wright, his own simple message to Pokemon players is one of respect for the fallen.
“Stay away from the memorials,” he said.