It was way back when I was a kid too young to concern myself with adult worries like Vietnam, counter culture, and gun violence. It was Christmas, and all I wanted was the stuff I saw on TV. And that year, Mattel was waging a campaign on pre-teens, pushing their brand new, full-scale, completely accurate toy version of the military’s standard weapon, the M-16. Mattel’s version was known as the M-16 Marauder (I have no clue as to why), but I remember that it was cool in a major way. It looked – and more importantly sounded – as if I would be able to take on an entire platoon of bad guys, single-handedly.
