Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1918136-20131020014707/@comment-1672596-20131020115353

Bluerock wrote: No, not that we know of.

Weedle McHairybug wrote: It's never stated whether he saw direct combat (though Gray Fox seems to imply otherwise in MG2). Quote for Gray Fox?

Weedle McHairybug wrote: In other words, he effectively acted as a child soldier in the sense that he was trained by the US Military from an early age. There is no evidence that he was trained during childhood. The OP was probably referring to the Raymond Benson novel, but what I was actually referring to was the secret tape in Peace Walker (which made it pretty clear even if not explicitly stated that Cipher planned to train Solid Snake and Liquid Snake as part of their insurance plan against Big Boss).

As for the quote regarding Gray Fox, its after you defeat him: "I'm not like you, Snake... My situation is more... complicated. Big Boss might have been just another CO to you, but he saved my life - twice. This was way before I joined the unit. The first time, I was half-white living in Vietnam... It was after the war, and half-whites were being sent into forced labor camps. He saved me from that living hell. Just like he saved all the children here... The second time was in Mozambique. I was being tortured as a RENAMO soldier, and he saved me again. They'd cut off my ears and my nose... [...] No, you've got it wrong. I hate war. Just like all the kids here. But... I need it. War is all we know. We can't make it in the normal world. We need the battlefield to survive. Big Boss gives us a place to fight. Conflict is on our blood. We can't deny it. I was born on the battlefield... And I'll die on the battlefield. All I can do is fight, Snake... all I can do is fight. Making people happy... making a woman happy... is something I could never do." The quote/exchange made it a bit clear that Gray Fox had at the very least been introduced to the battlefield since a very early age.