How did you get your start in Re-enacting?

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• (February 02, 2011, 12:47:01 AM)

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[Flakpanzer4]

The son and I decided we would like to start reeanacting after visiting the world's largest WWII show in Reading, PA. Any ways or stories of how you can get started in reeanacting and any websites is greatly appreciated. He sort of fell in love with the German encampments so we were thinking we would get our start on the Axis frontier.

[Gren.Wollf]

Browsing the internet one day, stumbled on it by accident.  Took me near a year to actually get involved.

[dbloge]

i was in bayeax france a few days before the 60 aniversary......i saw a few ss troops......i thought it would fun to reenact..........a few weeks later after i got back to the US i joined a unit

[Antonescu]

I did a search on the internet after thinking about going back to reenacting. I relooked at ACW but then typed WWII. I checked the links and the units who had members in my area.

Three good sites to look at are:

http://www.geocities.com/ww2_links/vendors.htm

http://ww2reenactorunits.tripod.com/index.htm

http://www.reenactor.net/main_htmls/ww2.html (Just for you Marsh  )

Depends on the Axis impression as well. Heer, LW/LW FD, Waffen-SS, KM or some newer ones like Hungarian and Romanian. Also look at if the unit is family friendly since it will be you and your son.

[Sturmkatze]

(Just for you Marsh  )

I'd have preferred a slightly different order to that listing...

[Sturmkatze]

I got started in reenacting by doing OpFor... we dressed up as Soviets and carried Sov weps and stuff -- this was back inthe old days before the Wall fell. Actually, we were inthe woods at an event, doing Soviet, when the Wall fell... it was pretty sureal. There, I had met a bunch of people who did diff time periods. I starte din WWI, resisted WWII for a coupla years until it called me home and voila! that was that.

[daniels]

It was a date, I had to pass muster of all her "little brothers" ....  I passed and in fact got maried to her and still reenact.

[Stump44]

I was collecting WWII Weapons and Military gear when I came across it searching for M1 Garand parts and info about 7 years ago. If it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't have much of anything pertaining to my collecting hobby.

[Aufklarungs11]

      I was literally born into the hobby in 1973.  My parents took me to my first event (American Revolution) as a camp follower when I was six months old.  I followed them around in both Rev War and American Civil War until I turned 8 and learned to play the drum for both impressions.  At 14, I was allowed to carry a musket in Rev War (still played the drum at some events) and at 16 I shouldered a musket for ACW.  That branched into OpFor as Soviet Airborne while I was in high school against different Army units while still doing the other two periods. 

     I went to college and joined the Marine Corps which slowed my reenacting down a little but continued doing ACW.  It wasn't until I was stationed in VA in 2000 that I joined WWII reenacting.  I had always been interested and had most of the gear for both US and German but had never gotten involved.  While shopping at Peterson's in VA (when his shop was still there) I ran into guys from 11th Pz and that pushed me over the edge to come to an event.  Since then, I have been an active member except when I deploy and have become the field commander of the unit (again, only when I am not deployed).

Different impressions I reenact/portray:
Rev War - Colonial Light Infantry
Mexican War- US Marine
ACW- US Volunteer, 4th NC Inf
Spanish American War- US Marine Officer and Enlisted
WWII- US Marine, US Army, Heer Officer and enlisted (11th Pz), Soviet (150th rifles)
Opfor- Soviet VDV (current security limits the units willing to use civilians as OpFor anymore)

Chris

[bmac]

I got started back in 99 when I was scale modelling.  I was looking for german camoflauge patterns for tanks when I came across Drew Zigo's website.  I was dumbfounded that people actually did this.  While I was looking around his site, I found his links page and went to An der Front (Rollin's old website name) and found a unit's page.  I sent 3 requests to different units and I went with one of them.  I haven't looked back since.

Bmac

[Nawlins5]

Actually started out doing online gaming with a gamed called Air Warrior. Flew as a Luftwaffe unit. Had always wanted to do ACW but didn't know who to contact. Did a search online out of the blue for German reenacting untis and found a couple of units located in LA and TX. Sent an email. Got a reply back. My first event was a Living History day here in New Orleans at the National WW2 Museum. Was loaned some gear that was a size too big. I looked pretty farby so I decided to break out the old credit card and began shopping. Forgot to tell the misses though.. OUCH!
And that was it!

[AWilke]

If by getting started in ww2 reenacting, it was a VERY long haul. I got started in ACW back in '89 just in time to catch the tail end of the 125th series. Needless to say I was blown away by it all! My Federal NYS volunteer impression expanded to Berdans SS with full regalia a few years later just to get a bit more into it. I returned to school, my participation at events suffered some for it, and I received my BA in linguistics. I decided at that point to reenact something considerably older or more contemporary than ACW, and a definite non English speaking one at that. I settled on a German ww1 impression and have been doing that at Newville for several years.I stumbled across a somewhat local ww2 Heer unit who had the same approach to their impression that my ww1 unit had and it was intriguing! I put together gear,  k98 and a uniform and have had a great time this year portraying Heer infantry!
    As I mentioned, its been a long haul to get there, but German WKI and II   is the bomb!

A Wilke

[draco63701]

Got started back in 1986 when I got out of high school.  Friend of mine at the time got me interested in the 28th SS, so I figured I'd give it a try. Got out when I got married, and just here recently got back into it now that my son is off to college.  Got to have something to help occupy the time now that he's started off on his life and all that good stuff.

[Sturmkatze]

I settled on a German ww1 impression and have been doing that at Newville for several years. I stumbled across a somewhat local ww2 Heer unit who had the same approach to their impression that my ww1 unit had and it was intriguing! I put together gear,  k98 and a uniform and have had a great time this year portraying Heer infantry!

As I mentioned, its been a long haul to get there, but German WKI and II is the bomb!

What 1wk unit?? 

[ursa major]

It was preordained. I got a job in high school working at the local museum. My world history teacher happened to be the president of the museum board. At a weekend event, there were two lonely CW reenactors recruiting for the 5th Texas unit. I went to a small event in Ohio, and was hooked. Ended up working for Jeff (one of the recruiters) for 4 years recreating CW uniforms. Since then, I've done Rev, F&I, and SCA. Seems to be a regressive trend there. Before long I'll just be wearing animal skins doing a cro-magnon man impression.