JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – It’s no surprise here that quite a few soldiers would prefer to be in Afghanistan. Infantrymen aren’t, for the most part, conducting missions that end in firefights too often. And many soldiers often don’t make it off Joint Base Balad.

But there’s one way to see some action without leaving the friendly – or air-conditioned – confines of the office: video games.

The guys at the public affairs office, many from the Arizona National Guard, set up their Xbox 360 and were playing the Call of Duty series, where they could shoot M-4s, rocket-propelled grenades, Squad Automatic Weapons, M-16s, sniper rifles and just about any other military-grade weapon. They talked trash to each other while munching on hot dogs and drinking the ubiquitous one-liter bottles of water that can be found everywhere in Iraq.

Countless soldiers (and civilians) dig these games. As one of them told me last week, "Hey, I’m trained as an infantryman. And I’m not doing infantry stuff. This is as close as I can get for now."