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It is difficult to explain what Second Life is, the same way it is difficult to explain what the web is to someone who has never heard of the Internet.

Second Life (http://secondlife.com) is an online 3D video-game like environment. The difference is you can build whatever you can dream of inside the game. Your game character (called an avatar) can be anything, dress-up as anything and do anything. But it isn’t really a game.

In late 2005, the number of members grew to 1 million, in December of last year Second Life crossed the 2 million landmark. Three weeks ago they crossed the 3 million member landmark. this weekend, they passed the 4 million mark. This puts Second Life where AOL was in 1996.

Corporations are moving into Second Life and they realize the marketing potential of it. Adidas, Toyota, Reebok all have presences there and just last week Mercedes opened a race track and showroom inside Second Life.

And that is what BFS is going to do.

One complaint we have all seen from our BFS soldiers is missing their family members back home - husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. Email doesn’t cut it, instant messenger seems hollow and although postal mail is very welcomed, it is always too infrequent for our deployed troops tastes.

The BFS Pavilion in Second Life will be built like something akin to a World War II era USO dance hall and park. This is a wonderful method for whole families to reunite with deployed loved-ones and have some semblance of a family life, even though it is a virtual one. Husbands can dance with wives and kids can play with their deployed parent once again.

It will also be a place for BFS volunteers to actually meet and hang out with our soldiers and maybe have a few virtual drinks.

No, BFS won’t stop shipping books to soldiers, but we are adding ways to help the troops, like we always have. They are serving us and we should never forget that.

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