I find it very difficult to deal with the 20th century conflicts I think because there are still survivors.
And these folks make modern era reenacting all worth it.
At a round table we did in the Twin Cities they had brought in 3 soviet WWII vets to speak. In the time before the actual start we are all running around, I was looking for the other reenactors, as I exited the auditorium I turned the corner and saw a elderly women in a blue suit all covered with medals and awards. I knew she was one of the vets. The second she saw me in my 1941 soviet officers uniform her eyes got real big and a massive smile crept onto her face. I knew that instant when she saw me a flood of memories had come over her.
It turned out she was a Lieutenant in a communications unit at Stalingrad. She had served near the oil storage tanks, and saved the radio equipment when they burned and her comrades dove into the Volga. She hadn't seen those war time uniforms in 60+ years.
After the lecture, we were waiting for some one on one time with the vets. The local papers were interviewing them in a closed room. A soviet colonel snuck out of those interviews and came to talk to us. Oh the stories he had. We hung on every word he said and he of course was amazed that there were red army reenactors in the U.S. He wanted to talk to us more than the papers.
Then there is the german vets we run into on the Midwest circuit. Ed & Wolfgang. Both were captured by the Soviets and spent time in a soviet POW camp. Not a pleasant experience for those unfamiliar with the subject. Both had no problems with the Soviet reenactors, and the stories Ed had. His escape from the kessel at Stalingrad. His time in the POW camp until 1948. So many stories and he loved telling them. Especially his observations about the Red Army Frontoviks.
I can't tell you how many U.S. veterans talk to us too. Their stories of when they met their first russians and what it was like. I spent an evening at a Civil War event listening to the stories a WWII PTO vet told me when he found out I reenacted WWII in addition to CW.
Now that I added cold war reenacting, I am getting a Vietnam vets that have stories just as good and amazing as the WWII veterans.
Too me modern era reenacting is far more rewarding than CW. It is the fact that the veterans are around and will tell you their stories. You just need to remember tact and courtesy. I hate seeing when a reenactor corrects a veteran. Yes the dates, or whatever minute details may be wrong. But they lived what we are reenacting and deserve some latitude.
Now we have the event at Branson coming up in November. It's a national veterans reunion, and they are expecting something like 50,000 vets. I wish I had time to listen to each and every one of them.
-dave
