Cyrus
Senior Registered
Have you ever attended a reenactors meeting?
There was a multi-era convention (from Prehistory to the Vietnam War) with 1350 participants this weekend in France.
I went there, I wanted to see if I felt anything special about the scenes, the atmospheres and to be able to talk about historical points.
Indeed I had feelings at the camps of the Vikings, Native Americans. I had shivers when I saw the reenactors of Napoleon’s Grande Armée shouting "long live the Emperor" at the sound of drums.( I guess I was in the opposite side in 1812).
But I was disappointed by the reenactors of the Vietnam War. I think they replayed much more movies than the real Vietnam war. by the way I asked them why they were interested in this period and the answers were the movies, the music...
I was touched to see close up an M60 machine gun, perhaps memories of my last life as a US marine in Vietnam, I would have liked to take it and maneuver it but it was not possible. I would have had a hard time explaining my own motives to them. They were already suprised of my interest and knowledge.
That’s why I answer but as a joke:" I was probably there in a past life!"
It was an experience to see if I could feel something special about an historical era, maybe something related to past lives but I would not like to be a week-end reenactor. Memories of past lives are not a game for me.
Hi, Emma.
First of all, take into account that the Vietnam war was viewed rather critically and negatively by many in its epoch. It's a very dubious honour in many places to be known as a Vietnam war participant, to say nothing of a "a hero".
Now, the re-enactors.
Sick people, if you ask me.
When lots of adult individuals gather in an open field, all clad like participants of a Napoleaon epoch battle because they fancy themselves being the real participants - it makes me think they badly need a good psychiatrist.
I know of a case of an aged university history professor, who killed a young girl-student some 30 years younger, who was his lover and who had repeatedly co-participated with him in such meetings, as battles, high society dancing assemblées etc. He killed her in his flat for some words of her he hadn't liked, and he started cutting her to smaller pieces to take her dead body outside little by little, and during one of such expeditions he was caught by some street dogs just when he was throwing her legs into the near-by river, at midnight. So Madame Bovary style.
IMHO
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