{"id":68904,"date":"2025-07-14T07:31:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T05:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/?p=68904"},"modified":"2026-03-04T10:49:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:49:23","slug":"trading-cards-with-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/trading-cards-with-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Trading Cards With Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not too far from the hustle bustle, there is a store in the Lower East Side of New York that specializes in old trading cards. Walking into it and rummaging waxed and foiled packs of Gremlins, Power Rangers and the Chicago Bulls that are all still accompanied with intact chewing gum from decades past, there is one other deck stacked in the corner that sticks out from the overall cheerful tone. With a shimmering blue cover highlighting wicked drawings of a fighter jet and a locked and loaded soldier, it must have taken its title Coalition for Peace<\/em><\/a> to purple heart.<\/p>\n

\"Trading<\/p>\n

When it began circulating in 1991, these trading cards were the somewhat official Desert Storm<\/em> collectables that tried to make the First Gulf War cool. Kids and teenagers from the self declared greatest country on earth<\/em> exchanged cards showcasing The Power of the Tomahawk<\/em><\/a> in obliterating Iraqi and Kuwaiti buildings, as well as an entire deck of firearms, guns, tanks and warships. War machines aside, a few of the faces on the cards became collectibles too. Lucky traders might have stumbled upon cards of a mischievous looking Saddam Hussein, while others got a hold of the composed Commander in Chief<\/em>, none other than George H.W Bush himself. But it was the cards of camouflaged, determined soldiers who were Ready For Action <\/em>and were The Backbone <\/em>of that entire operation that threw an interesting linguistic light into the collectibles: in the American imagination, the Gulf War is still regarded as the most mature and sensible invasion to have taken place in the country\u2019s recent memory. What was unprecedented about it were the medical-like words its government officials and mass media have used to describe it: Surgical <\/em>strikes. Accurate <\/em>precision bombs. Precise<\/em> and devastating air attacks.[1]<\/sup><\/a>These examples have been taken from The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War<\/em><\/a>, 1992<\/a>.<\/span><\/span>