Keyboards Are Rifles in This Absurd Video the Army Made to Promote its 'Cyber Ranger' Contest

A man in a balaclava holds his keyboard like a rifle. He pokes the nose of the keyboard out a window and hits the delete key. Keyboard-armed U.S. Army soldiers scatter and take position along a wall. Bad guys clad in black stream out of a warehouse and a soldier points his keyboard at them. “Denial of service attack” he yells. The keyboard bucks as if it’s spitting bullets. The bad guys fall.

This ridiculous video is a call to keyboards. The U.S. Army is looking for its best Cyber Ranger 2018: “To bring awareness to cyber security, I invite you and your units to assemble teams of signal and cyber warriors to participate in this year’s Best Cyber Ranger competition,” Brigadier General John Phillips explained in the video. “This is Cyber Bowl 4, where small teams compete against each other in various tests and games, putting their cyber skills on display.”

The competition is a yearly event at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, where the American military gathers to compete and learn about cyber security. Regardless of what anyone learns about cyber security, the competition has already produced one positive result—this amazing recruitment video. It’s a treasure I can’t stop watching.