A Brief History of  Nerf Wars

The Nerf Wars began in October of 1999 when a group of students, largely at the direction of Shawn Gafford, purchased Nerf (TM) foam rubber dart guns. They began to shoot each other with these weapons and rapidly developed rules for determining victories. Shawn Gafford declared himself the leader of the group and was accepted by the members.


The first night a tradition was set for entrance into the group, the Hunt. It consisted of being given the lowest grade weapon that Nerf Produced and being sent off alone to hide. The hunted was not allowed to move from his or her hiding place until he or she fired on a hunter. This was to see how good a person was. Note worthy hunts include Tim Gusukuma, whose hunt lasted so long he got bored and ended it himself, and Megan Michaels, the only person ever to get a kill on a hunt.


By the spring semester the group had expanded and began to organize. Several ranking systems were considered and finally the current rank system of the US Army was adopted. The original organization had Shawn Gafford as a Brigadier General (Scotsman) and Jon Hoyer as a Colonel and second in command. Jon was soon replaced by Jon Fox (Firefox). Colonel Firefox was the second in command and Field Commander. Matt Carey (Ghost, later Apparition) was made a Major and made Head of Information. David Tankersley (Tank) was made Sergeant Major of the Army, and given the duties of training. At this time the group began to learn how to work together and move as units. Each member was given a rank and a call sign. Noting that certain members seemed to have a higher level of skill than the others, General Scotsman created a special operations group (Spec Ops) and placed Major Ghost in command.


General Scotsman, due to unfortunate circumstances, was unable to return to HPU in the Fall of 2000, and command of the group fell to Colonel Firefox and Major Ghost. That summer the command staff (the two aforementioned officers and Sgt. Maj. Tank) determined that a new command structure was needed. All three were elevated to the rank of Colonel and the rank of General was abolished. The new group was called the Triumvirate, and all three had equal decision-making power. Col. Tank was Head of Training,; Col. Ghost was Head of Information and later the Field Commander, also the Head of Spec Ops; Col. Firefox was Head of Promotions. That semester proved to be the Golden Age of the Nerf Wars, as interest waned at the end and the group met only once or twice the next semester.


There was talk of restarting the group in the fall as the Spring 2002 semester came to a close. Col. Tank was given sole temporary command of the group as well as the task of rekindling the fires of war. During the summer, he wrote down much of the Nerf Wars Doctrine and compiled the personnel information he had, but failed to generate enough interest in starting the group again.


Article by David "Tank" Tankersley




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