The three young fellows sitting around the campfire at a forgotten
Civil
War reenactment were quick to criticize any other participant.
Somebody
wasn't authentic enough or somebody wasn't drilling just right
to suit
their taste. It's a tired old conversation in our hobby,
too often
repeated in a world too polluted by "experts".
The old sergeant sitting on the other side of the fire ring let
the boys
talk themselves out before he posed a most interesting question,
wondering
out loud where they might have been April 1st, 1971. One
of the youth
wasn't born, another would have been in the third grade and the
last
honestly couldn't possibly remember. The old sergeant could
though.
On that date he'd been from them to him from the border of Laos
and in the
middle of a firefight with the Viet Cong. He slid his shirt
back just far
enough to show the two long scars a VC mortar had left him.
With a badge
like that, he figured he knew what a real war looked like.....what
it
sounded like....what it smelled like. Therefore, knowing
what the real
thing was, he was well aware this was a hobby. Nothing more,
nothing less.
A hobby. A pursuit done in enjoyment, not because of need
or necessity, to
be savored with people you like. Not people you tolerate,
not people you
can't stand, people you like. It doesn't matter what brings
a person to
the hobby of Civil War reenactmenting, it's their enjoyment of
the craft
and the people that is all that matters. Enjoyment with the
people we
like.
The Kentucky Brigade is founded and flourishes on the words of
an old
veteran.
Brig. General Eli Beachy
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