TPM Reader AS shares an interesting perspective on Vietnam War reenacting …
To your general question, pretty much every war has its reenactors. For a sampling, take a look at this dude’s pics from “Marching Through Time” held at Marietta Mansion. These ‘timeline’ events are sort of a military history mall. If you’d like to read a somewhat sympathetic, though still objective treatment of the WWII reenactors, I can recommend War Games. In fact, Jenny Thompson would be a good person to interview on this story. http://www.amazon.com/War-Games-Inside-Twentieth-Century-Reenactors/dp/1588341283 I’ve actually spent some up-close-and-personal time with Vietnam War reenactors. I worked on a documentary (still unfinished) about the topic for a year or so with a group of guys who live in PA, DE and NJ, and I came away with a much more nuanced perspective than I anticipated.
Three things surprised me: 1) Actual Vietnam combat veterans participated. For them, it’s worth remembering, Vietnam was their 20s. It was horrifying, yes, but it was also a really impressive period of their lives, when they made some of their best friends. One Veteran’s Day, we interviewed a bunch of veterans on the Mall in DC, and several of them talked about getting together with their buddies in the wake of the war to recreate the firebase experience. 2) The children of veterans used reenacting as a way of getting their fathers to share their experience. They treated the reenacting ‘hobby’ as a tribute to their fathers, and in one particularly memorable case, a father and son were able to really connect for the first time when the father was invited to be an advisor to the group of reenactors. 3) Current Veterans (of Iraq and Afghanistan) find it relaxing to participate. Non-veteran reenactors look up to them, but they also reported that experiencing these periods of heightened tactical awareness (however contrived) made their transition to regular life a little easier to bear.
Another fascinating read that delves into the social life of reenacting is Tony Horwitz Confederates in the Attic. The book introduces the concept of a FARB which is short for Far Be it From Real, a slur on reenactors who don’t really do the necessary research to learn the period-perfect details about uniforms, food, language, etc. In that respect, reenacting is similar to many hobbies in that there are hierarchies of authority, and the more experienced participants are disdainful of new and less committed participants. In war-reenacting, that tends to mean that serious reenactors drift forward in time from the more popular Revolutionary and Civil War to more recent conflicts. With that shift comes less of a spectator-orientation and more private invite-only events. In order to shoot the events we participated in with the Vietnam reenactors, we had to be vetted.
All in all, it’s a fascinating world of mostly men who, when you step back, are basically engaged in costume dramas. But at least with the Vietnam reenactors, there’s sometimes quite a bit a stake.
