Daniel Criddle entered into the armed forces more than 20 years ago. His time in the service, while carrying him around the world, built on his love of “nerd culture” and even introduced him to new aspects of it.
Criddle has been collecting since his early childhood.
“I’ve been a collector since I was probably nine or 10 years old,” he said. “I got my first pack of sports cards and went to some of my first sports card shows when I was a kid back during the late 1980s. It was really popular at that time. I loved sports cards, but then I ended up falling into the black hole of comics.”
He said that comics are, to him, as “American as baseball and apple pie.”
“I think it is really like a cornerstone of all of these stories. While they may be fiction, it is still a great reflection of who we are as a people,” he said. “I really do believe that.”
There was never any doubt about his military career though. It was almost predestined.
“I come from a military family,” he said. “My father was in the Army. He served in Vietnam. I have two older brothers, both of them are Marines. I have two younger brothers, one of which was in the Air Force. Service is just kind of something that we do. Now my son is a Marine, so I have passed the torch to the next generation. It just becomes part of a culture.”
Being in the service allowed him to travel the world, but it was during a tour of duty in Afghanistan that Criddle was introduced to tabletop gaming, expanding his love of the culture.
“I’ve been to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Greece, Ireland, Germany. I’ve been all over the place,” he said. “I was deployed to Iraq on the initial invasion for 15 months, then I ended up going to Afghanistan and was there from 2011 to 2012. That’s actually where I picked up (the card game) ‘Magic the Gathering,’ when I was in Kandahar. I had seen it before and never played it. A lot of guys in my unit had picked it up and were playing it.”
He said that the gaming community was stronger within the armed forces than many realize — and for good reason.
“That’s the thing about playing a card game that’s different from other things,” he said. “In the service I think it’s more relatable. You can play a card game anywhere. You don’t need electricity. You can also get cards mailed to you. I think that’s the reason why the gaming culture is a little bit stronger in the U.S. Armed Forces. The same with comic books: you don’t require a television.”
When Criddle returned stateside, his newfound love of gaming blossomed. He began visiting different comic and gaming stores and immersing himself in the community.
He is currently active with the Mississippi Army National Guard, where he serves as the Property Book Officer for the 155 Armor Brigade, but he has recently undertaken a side project.
He is opening Foxhole Comics and Games in Columbus in an effort to give his fellow collectors/games in the area a place to gather together that is close to home.
He recognizes that he is not the stereotypical serviceman, but he thinks that everyone has a bit of “the culture” within them.
“I’m maybe not the guy that people thought I was, but I think there’s an inner nerd in every person,” he said. “Maybe it’s not comic books or sports cards, but they’ve got something in there, every person does. Maybe they want to go read the technical manual on how to rebuild a carburetor. It’s part of what makes you tick on the inside, and comic books have always been a part of that for me.”
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