“Small victory,” was all it said on the subject line of Karen Meredith’s e-mail.

But for the Silicon Valley military mom, who lost her son in the Iraq war, the decision this week by U.S. military base exchanges not to carry the controversial “Medal of Honor” video game was still great news.

“I’m thrilled,” said Meredith, whose son, Lt. Ken Ballard, perished in 2004. She has set off a storm of protest against Redwood City-based Electronic Arts and its “first-person shooter” game, which allows players to pretend they’re Taliban fighters killing American soldiers in Afghanistan. She applauded Maj. Gen. Bruce Casella, commander of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, or AAFES, for the decision to keep the game out of its stores worldwide.

“I’ve heard from people all over the world, many of them upset about this game, so at least this has started a conversation,” she said. “And this country needs to have a conversation about the place of violent video games in our society, especially a game based on an ongoing war.”

Due out Oct. 12, “Medal of Honor” has drawn accolades from gamers and has been defended even by some U.S. soldiers. But it has unleashed howls of protest from families who have lost loved ones and even from Great Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence Liam Fox, who urged retailers to “ban this tasteless product.”

Electronic Arts spokesman Jeff Brown on Friday issued a statement that said in part: “The criticism of ‘Medal of Honor’ is disappointing because I can’t think of another interactive game that has gone to such lengths to convey respect for soldiers. From the very first day of development, the ‘Medal of Honor’ development team has been dedicated to creating an homage to the soldiers who fight the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

Saying EA feels “a deep sympathy and respect for the soldiers and people with family members killed or wounded in Afghanistan,” Brown wrote that “we don’t see a distinction between a film like ‘Hurt Locker’ and a game like ‘Medal of Honor.’ We don’t agree that it’s OK to depict the war in films and books, but not in games. We don’t see a moral difference.”

Meredith and her fellow military moms don’t buy it, saying that by allowing participants to assume the role of Taliban and kill American soldiers like her son, EA has crossed the line. And while she’s heartened by the AAFES decision, she’s still not satisfied.

“The fact that the Army has responded this way tells me that I’m not the only one upset about this,” she said Friday. “Now I want EA to pull the game on their own because t’s the right thing to do.”

This week’s decision by AAFES, which many bloggers, gamers and even American soldiers criticized as censorship, impacts all Army and Air Force Exchange operations worldwide, including AAFES’ website and GameStop locations on military bases. An AAFES spokesman said all pre-orders and reservations placed online would be canceled and any pre-orders placed through GameStop locations on Army and Air Force installations would be transferred to off-base ones.

“We regret any inconvenience this may cause authorized shoppers, but are optimistic that they will understand the sensitivity to the life-and-death scenarios this product presents as entertainment,” Casella said in a statement. “As a military command with a retail mission, we serve a very unique customer base that has, or possibly will, witness combat in real life.”

But Army Pvt. Mitchell Blackburn in Bamberg, Germany, complained to Stars and Stripes newspaper that those who banished the game “are not giving people the credit to distinguish fiction from reality. People know it is a video game. “… Just because you are playing as [the Taliban] does not mean you really want to kill Americans or coalition forces.”

It was not immediately clear how the move might affect EA’s bottom line. AAFES said its base/post exchanges did $176 million in video-games sales in 2009.

Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689.