When you put it this way, the whole concept is overwhelming (in more ways than one). And the Nazi-uniformed 'confederate' - a bit of wishful thinking? Growing up as I did in the 40's-50's, I had little chance to look down on others as different, because almost everybody was of my klan. When I was struggling thru my teens - figuring out who I was going to become - I had more sympathy than other emotion to those I saw as different. I guess I never felt superior to any class of people. I mean, we're all struggling here, right? Back to reenactments ... if replaying the past to change it into something better could work, we have (worldwide) a lot of reenactments to do. Can we reenact JFK's assassination? Lincoln's? 911? Can we 'abort' some of our horrible dictators before they even get a chance to breathe on this earth? Maybe the ultimate question would be - what event would you choose to 'abort' to save mankind? Could you choose only one??
Hey - really enjoying our conversations. Challenging and fun ... till next time.
Julia you should read a little bit of Harry Turtledove...Guns of the South in particular. It's alternate history, but this one has Lee with an AK47. Changing history could be an interesting "reality" show...but unintended consequences can be a real mess. I've gotten to the point that whatever happens, happens...I can push or pull and sometimes effect the outcome...like our fracking video did. I believe the ban might not have happened...certainly not in that time frame if we had not produced that video.
I believe most re-enactors do that as a hobby, and that's what they call it, (as if there are no other hobbies in the world ) to better understand it...especially the military side, the tactics, the effort it took. It also is a sort of time travel back into a slower pace of life. I actually miss the campfire life at night...with the spectators gone. There were times it felt just like 1862...for a moment at least. No cell phones, no TV, nothing electric.
Okay. As an old school born-and-bred New Englander, I don't get it. Why do descendants of the Confederacy want to re-enact those long-ago battles? Do they hope for a different ending? (I still don't get it.)
Julia, some do hope for a different ending...if they keep fighting...maybe Lee won't surrender...most of these battles are scripted and sometimes the Rebels "free lance" and vamp...which really pisses off the Federals.
The large Civil War re-enactments we used to document are probably the largest choreographed historic re-creations on the planet. The 2 largest we did were the 135th Antietam & Gettysburg with 15,000 to 20,000 re-enactors. The goal was to authentically recreate the troop movements, the numbers of casualties and feel as real and accurate to the public as possible. It took a lot pre-planning and radio contact. They would have an announcer give a play by play. It's basically bringing the text book or movie to life. We used to travel from Canada to Florida to KY & TN for events.
The Britts reenact everything from Roman times to now.
People would come from 15 foreign countries to re-enact our Civil War. We also documented WWII re-enactments like the 50th Anniversary D-Day. I found it interesting that many Rebel re-enactors portrayed Germans...some of them wearing Nazi emblems or using Nazi flags and banners...(hiding in plain site ?) .
I started documenting them, because I wanted to experience those battles as closely as I could...an available form of time travel. My question as a child at Antietam was "how could people create 23,000 casualties in one day in this place? About 6,000 died that day...3-4,000 more died within weeks. It was mind boggling to me...and the re-enactments helped answer the question for me as a line of 1,000 men would bayonet charge another line who fired a volley into them...knocking down 30-40% in one co-ordinated shot by the whole line. When you do that for 12 hours and have 150,000 people available for the killing...a lot of people died or ended up crippled. It was a widow & orphan machine.
Any talk of secession by MTG and others sends a chill up my spine and my hair stands on edge. They are clueless.
When you put it this way, the whole concept is overwhelming (in more ways than one). And the Nazi-uniformed 'confederate' - a bit of wishful thinking? Growing up as I did in the 40's-50's, I had little chance to look down on others as different, because almost everybody was of my klan. When I was struggling thru my teens - figuring out who I was going to become - I had more sympathy than other emotion to those I saw as different. I guess I never felt superior to any class of people. I mean, we're all struggling here, right? Back to reenactments ... if replaying the past to change it into something better could work, we have (worldwide) a lot of reenactments to do. Can we reenact JFK's assassination? Lincoln's? 911? Can we 'abort' some of our horrible dictators before they even get a chance to breathe on this earth? Maybe the ultimate question would be - what event would you choose to 'abort' to save mankind? Could you choose only one??
Hey - really enjoying our conversations. Challenging and fun ... till next time.
Julia you should read a little bit of Harry Turtledove...Guns of the South in particular. It's alternate history, but this one has Lee with an AK47. Changing history could be an interesting "reality" show...but unintended consequences can be a real mess. I've gotten to the point that whatever happens, happens...I can push or pull and sometimes effect the outcome...like our fracking video did. I believe the ban might not have happened...certainly not in that time frame if we had not produced that video.
I believe most re-enactors do that as a hobby, and that's what they call it, (as if there are no other hobbies in the world ) to better understand it...especially the military side, the tactics, the effort it took. It also is a sort of time travel back into a slower pace of life. I actually miss the campfire life at night...with the spectators gone. There were times it felt just like 1862...for a moment at least. No cell phones, no TV, nothing electric.
Okay. As an old school born-and-bred New Englander, I don't get it. Why do descendants of the Confederacy want to re-enact those long-ago battles? Do they hope for a different ending? (I still don't get it.)
Julia, some do hope for a different ending...if they keep fighting...maybe Lee won't surrender...most of these battles are scripted and sometimes the Rebels "free lance" and vamp...which really pisses off the Federals.
The large Civil War re-enactments we used to document are probably the largest choreographed historic re-creations on the planet. The 2 largest we did were the 135th Antietam & Gettysburg with 15,000 to 20,000 re-enactors. The goal was to authentically recreate the troop movements, the numbers of casualties and feel as real and accurate to the public as possible. It took a lot pre-planning and radio contact. They would have an announcer give a play by play. It's basically bringing the text book or movie to life. We used to travel from Canada to Florida to KY & TN for events.
The Britts reenact everything from Roman times to now.
People would come from 15 foreign countries to re-enact our Civil War. We also documented WWII re-enactments like the 50th Anniversary D-Day. I found it interesting that many Rebel re-enactors portrayed Germans...some of them wearing Nazi emblems or using Nazi flags and banners...(hiding in plain site ?) .
I started documenting them, because I wanted to experience those battles as closely as I could...an available form of time travel. My question as a child at Antietam was "how could people create 23,000 casualties in one day in this place? About 6,000 died that day...3-4,000 more died within weeks. It was mind boggling to me...and the re-enactments helped answer the question for me as a line of 1,000 men would bayonet charge another line who fired a volley into them...knocking down 30-40% in one co-ordinated shot by the whole line. When you do that for 12 hours and have 150,000 people available for the killing...a lot of people died or ended up crippled. It was a widow & orphan machine.
Any talk of secession by MTG and others sends a chill up my spine and my hair stands on edge. They are clueless.