Army unit promising soldiers who reenlist time off to play ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’
by Brad Matthews · The Washington TimesSoldiers who reenlist with the Army’s 9th Engineer Battalion in Georgia by Nov. 14 will be allowed leave to play the new video game “Grand Theft Auto VI.”
In a memo published in July and posted online by the social media page “U.S Army W.T.F! Moments” on Monday, Lt. Col. Ryan Hodgson, the battalion commander, promised that any soldiers who signed a reenlistment contract between Aug. 1 and Nov. 14 would be authorized a four-day pass to play the game.
Army officials subsequently confirmed that the memo and offer were real, according to the military news site Task & Purpose.
Fans have been waiting for the next installment in the “Grand Theft Auto” series for over a decade.
The fifth game in the series, which came out in 2013, has sold hundreds of millions of copies. The first trailer for the sixth installment came out in 2023, but the game’s release was pushed back multiple times.
The exact dates of each soldier’s four-day pass will coincide with the game’s release, according to the memo. The game is scheduled to hit Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox on Nov. 19, according to the website of the game’s developer, Rockstar Games.
Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokeswoman for the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which oversees the battalion, told ABC News that “the battalion has a new career counselor who approached unit leadership with an idea for an updated creative incentives program.”
To qualify for time off to play “Grand Theft Auto VI,” soldiers will have to reenlist for two to six years of additional service. Col. Tomko told ABC News that as of Wednesday, 20 soldiers had taken the deal.
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Overall, 130 soldiers in the 9th Engineer Battalion are eligible to take the deal, according to Task & Purpose.
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