Drizzt
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Copyright 2002 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
December 29, 2002, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: MAGAZINE; Pg. W08
LENGTH: 3932 words
HEADLINE: Attack of the Clones; They dress like Nazis and drive amphibious vehicles. And they wage their own Battle of the Bulge on a U.S. military base. Does the Pentagon know about this?
BYLINE: Richard B. Woodward
BODY:
It's a beautiful day for a war. The frost on the ground at reveille has melted away under spotless skies. Except high in the mountains surrounding the valley, the snow vanished weeks ago. By 1000 hours, temperatures have climbed into the forties, and before the battle has ended in mid-afternoon, soldiers will be shedding helmets and overcoats in 60-degree heat, their arms and faces raised toward the ventilating breeze.
This is crazy weather for central Pennsylvania on the last weekend of January, and for the 900 or so military reenactors, gathered at Fort Indiantown Gap military base for their annual re-creation of the Battle of the Bulge, the balmy morning presents yet another "inauthentic" factor in their scenario of war, January 1945.
Fifty-seven years ago, in the Ardennes region of Belgium, the winter was not so kind. Cold took a horrific toll on both Allied and German armies at the Battle of the Bulge. Soldiers sank up to their waists in quagmires of snow. Roads were pitted with Olympic-size puddles, and passing tanks splattered icy mud on sleep-starved troops. Knifing winds froze toes and trigger fingers. Hundreds of men on both sides died from exposure or had limbs amputated. Then again, military reenacting has always been more about fantasies of time travel than acknowledging the unpleasant facts of history. Given the million other things this day that won't begin to approximate the conflagration of World War II -- blanks instead of bullets, for starters -- a discrepancy of 50 degrees is comparatively minor and, for these mostly out-of-shape weekend warriors who will be humping rifles and packs up and down stony hillsides for hours, not unwelcome.
Every weekend somewhere in the United States, groups like this come together to dress up in WWII gear and fire off WWII weapons. Outfitted as GIs and Nazis, they assume roles on the world stage of 1939-1945, when governments killed more people in less time than ever before or since. Gruesome fascination with the period, especially the almost incomprehensible crimes of the Third Reich, has not diminished with time. The once-a-year gathering at Fort Indiantown Gap (known to insiders as the BOB at FIG) is the biggest event on the calendar -- the Super Bowl of WWII reenactments -- and enthusiasts from around the country prepare all year for the spectacle, which culminates in a large-scale battle.
The BOB at FIG is designed exclusively for the reenactors themselves, and they pay good money for the right to shoot at one another in the woods above the base. But as a public-spirited gesture, the organizers also stage a "tactical" down in the valley -- open to anyone. This year it matches Grossdeutschland, the most rigorous of all the WWII units and a showcase for what reenacting can be, with the more relaxed American members of K Company.
A man with a loudspeaker offers play-by-play analysis to about 200 of us who have gathered on a hillside overlooking a treeless plain. "The Germans have won the toss, and they will be attacking."
In jeeps and on foot, K Company moves swiftly across the field, then turns to confront its opponent. As Grossdeutschland slowly advances, a hand signal from a referee starts the battle. Volleys of blank rounds echo across the valley.
A German Hetzer (a light tank) opens up on the Americans; they return fire with a howitzer and a .30-caliber machine gun. Although the combatants are no more than 750 yards away, the crackle of rifles and the boom of cannon sound distant and toy-like. None of the spectators I can see have put down their coffee and hot dogs, served from a convenience truck, to cower in fear.
"Bunch of wannabes," mutters Bob Hyde, a 79-year-old who fought at the Bulge with the 109th Infantry, 28th Division. "All wars should be like this," he says with a wry smile. "No casualties."
Two years ago, during my first visit to the BOB, the war game was a wide-open affair. A friend and I drove freely around the training area of the base. Following the sound of gunfire up into the mountains, we ended up parked a dozen yards from an American battery with a 37mm howitzer that was shooting blank shells at unseen German placements. We chatted with the dead as they trudged out of the snowy forest, and several let us fire their carbines. An American reenactor asked if I wanted to join his unit as a war correspondent.
But post-September 11 security measures went into effect this year. With MPs checking ID at the entrance to the parking lots, and armed guards standing at intersections near the reenactment, the restrictions on journalists became far more severe -- just as in a real war these days. I tried to be thankful for the access I did receive. After all, it is strikingly generous and odd that for 12 years the U.S. military has rented out a base for a weekend gun battle. Some fear if Donald Rumsfeld knew about these shenanigans, it wouldn't go on much longer.
That would be a pity. Lasting four days, the event is well planned, and a bargain. Starting on Wednesday with the opening of the flea market, it peaks on Saturday with the "scenario." In between are mandatory classes on vehicle driver safety; meetings for role-playing medics, MPs, company commanders and overall commanders (Allied and Axis); and, this year, screenings of the HBO film "When Trumpets Fade." Everything winds up on Saturday night at the officers club with skits, songs and other "period entertainment." A fee of $ 37 (the no-meal plan) gives reenactors, U.S. military veterans or flea market vendors a bed in a barracks for four nights and access to all of the above.
Each side in the scenario is given an objective, time to set up troops and a limited supply of ammunition. Areas in the FIG woods are designated by overall commanders to represent famous sites in the Ardennes. This year the Americans were told to take "St. Vith" and to protect "Bastogne" in the rear, the Germans to achieve the reverse. The scenario changes annually, depending on how many units of which armies sign up to attend. Americans and British turned out in force this year. Two years ago the Germans ruled. (In the battle they took their objective in 45 minutes, crushing the Allies so quickly that the reenactment was reenacted. "They cried and whined," an SS captain told me in disgust. So the Germans caved in and were trounced the second time.)
Brawls have broken out over "kills." Angry cries of "I dispute that hit, pal" are commonly heard when fighting with blanks, although most reenactors confess that "you know when someone's scored a good hit." The dead simply walk off the battlefield and wait for the living to finish.
At 1500 hours the war is whistled to a close.
It's a thankless (and nonpaying) job to keep 900 grown men excited for an afternoon: to compress six weeks into five hours, a 100-mile front into 41/2 kilometers, and plan for a fair fight, knowing there may be a force ratio of 2 to 1 in favor of one side or the other.
William Bethke, a 47-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who works for Boeing in Chantilly, was commander of Allied forces this year as a British brigadier. He has reenacted since 1981, playing a British soldier in the Revolutionary War, a Confederate in the Civil War, and, since 1984, a British commander in World War II. He likes to stress his hobby's positive message. "If you can touch and feel something, you can
better understand it," he says. His wife takes part, too, as an English or Welsh participant.
The trappings of power at the BOB reenactment are nothing to speak of. Bethke pays for some necessities -- photocopying terrain maps and mailing them to commanders in the fall -- out of his own pocket. On the walls of the barracks that constitute Allied headquarters hangs a small poster of Winston Churchill and an aerial view of the FIG base. An old typewriter and a disconnected '40s-era phone sit on a desk. (Chief organizer David Shaw rents the FIG base for $ 60,000 from money collected through dues paid to the World War II Historical Preservation Federation, and from attendees. Any money left over is rolled over to the following year.)
Bethke is aware of the event's unusual status -- "This is the only base on the East Coast that allows civilians to come and play in their sandbox," he says -- and claims the hardest part of his job is getting people to cooperate. "We have some bad officers, some bad sergeants," he says with a sigh. "They don't want to follow orders. All they want to do is fire a gun. Okay. That's fine. I enjoy that, too. But this base has security concerns. We're allowed to be here because of our reputation. Five or six years ago we were known as a loose organization. We have to be stricter now about rules and discipline in part because this isn't the same place it was on September 10th."
Everyone scheduled to fight must submit to a safety and authenticity inspection at 7:30 on Saturday morning. But when we pull in about the same time, things are behind schedule. In the area behind the garages and in front of the firing range where the armies are supposed to muster, ranks are ragged with the missing. An American squad is practice-marching along the lanes between the barracks ("one, two, three, four/I don't want to go to war"), and all over the parking lot late-risers are pulling weapons and winter gear out of car trunks and minivans.
Outside of a Spielberg production, you're not likely to see a finer collection of WWII uniforms and hardware. Trained units of American, German, British, Rus-sian and Canadian reenactors typically turn up. Owners of jeeps and trucks from the period, many of whom belong to the Military Vehicle Preservation Association, drive from as far away as Utah and California. Heavy armor is shipped to the base by rail or semi. The event may be the only opportunity for collectors to show off restored materiel or recent purchases in front of a discerning audience.
Much to everyone's disappointment, no heavy armor has made the trip this year. Sherman tanks, a common sight at previous BOBs, are a no-show. Reenactment veterans speak nostalgically of the late '90s as the heyday at FIG. Enough tanks were on hand in 1996 for them to have a small battle of their own. But the man who owned two panzers had to sell them (one for $ 250,000) to pay for a divorce. Or so goes the story.
Even so, lining up for review and spewing plumes of frosty diesel smoke are an array of German machines: several '40s BMW motorcycles with sidecars, a 1943 Ford truck (manufactured in Germany), a 1943 and a 1944 Kuebelwagen (a scout car), and an eight-wheeled light armored infantry support vehicle in a period reproduction from Florida.
The Washington Post
December 29, 2002, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: MAGAZINE; Pg. W08
LENGTH: 3932 words
HEADLINE: Attack of the Clones; They dress like Nazis and drive amphibious vehicles. And they wage their own Battle of the Bulge on a U.S. military base. Does the Pentagon know about this?
BYLINE: Richard B. Woodward
BODY:
It's a beautiful day for a war. The frost on the ground at reveille has melted away under spotless skies. Except high in the mountains surrounding the valley, the snow vanished weeks ago. By 1000 hours, temperatures have climbed into the forties, and before the battle has ended in mid-afternoon, soldiers will be shedding helmets and overcoats in 60-degree heat, their arms and faces raised toward the ventilating breeze.
This is crazy weather for central Pennsylvania on the last weekend of January, and for the 900 or so military reenactors, gathered at Fort Indiantown Gap military base for their annual re-creation of the Battle of the Bulge, the balmy morning presents yet another "inauthentic" factor in their scenario of war, January 1945.
Fifty-seven years ago, in the Ardennes region of Belgium, the winter was not so kind. Cold took a horrific toll on both Allied and German armies at the Battle of the Bulge. Soldiers sank up to their waists in quagmires of snow. Roads were pitted with Olympic-size puddles, and passing tanks splattered icy mud on sleep-starved troops. Knifing winds froze toes and trigger fingers. Hundreds of men on both sides died from exposure or had limbs amputated. Then again, military reenacting has always been more about fantasies of time travel than acknowledging the unpleasant facts of history. Given the million other things this day that won't begin to approximate the conflagration of World War II -- blanks instead of bullets, for starters -- a discrepancy of 50 degrees is comparatively minor and, for these mostly out-of-shape weekend warriors who will be humping rifles and packs up and down stony hillsides for hours, not unwelcome.
Every weekend somewhere in the United States, groups like this come together to dress up in WWII gear and fire off WWII weapons. Outfitted as GIs and Nazis, they assume roles on the world stage of 1939-1945, when governments killed more people in less time than ever before or since. Gruesome fascination with the period, especially the almost incomprehensible crimes of the Third Reich, has not diminished with time. The once-a-year gathering at Fort Indiantown Gap (known to insiders as the BOB at FIG) is the biggest event on the calendar -- the Super Bowl of WWII reenactments -- and enthusiasts from around the country prepare all year for the spectacle, which culminates in a large-scale battle.
The BOB at FIG is designed exclusively for the reenactors themselves, and they pay good money for the right to shoot at one another in the woods above the base. But as a public-spirited gesture, the organizers also stage a "tactical" down in the valley -- open to anyone. This year it matches Grossdeutschland, the most rigorous of all the WWII units and a showcase for what reenacting can be, with the more relaxed American members of K Company.
A man with a loudspeaker offers play-by-play analysis to about 200 of us who have gathered on a hillside overlooking a treeless plain. "The Germans have won the toss, and they will be attacking."
In jeeps and on foot, K Company moves swiftly across the field, then turns to confront its opponent. As Grossdeutschland slowly advances, a hand signal from a referee starts the battle. Volleys of blank rounds echo across the valley.
A German Hetzer (a light tank) opens up on the Americans; they return fire with a howitzer and a .30-caliber machine gun. Although the combatants are no more than 750 yards away, the crackle of rifles and the boom of cannon sound distant and toy-like. None of the spectators I can see have put down their coffee and hot dogs, served from a convenience truck, to cower in fear.
"Bunch of wannabes," mutters Bob Hyde, a 79-year-old who fought at the Bulge with the 109th Infantry, 28th Division. "All wars should be like this," he says with a wry smile. "No casualties."
Two years ago, during my first visit to the BOB, the war game was a wide-open affair. A friend and I drove freely around the training area of the base. Following the sound of gunfire up into the mountains, we ended up parked a dozen yards from an American battery with a 37mm howitzer that was shooting blank shells at unseen German placements. We chatted with the dead as they trudged out of the snowy forest, and several let us fire their carbines. An American reenactor asked if I wanted to join his unit as a war correspondent.
But post-September 11 security measures went into effect this year. With MPs checking ID at the entrance to the parking lots, and armed guards standing at intersections near the reenactment, the restrictions on journalists became far more severe -- just as in a real war these days. I tried to be thankful for the access I did receive. After all, it is strikingly generous and odd that for 12 years the U.S. military has rented out a base for a weekend gun battle. Some fear if Donald Rumsfeld knew about these shenanigans, it wouldn't go on much longer.
That would be a pity. Lasting four days, the event is well planned, and a bargain. Starting on Wednesday with the opening of the flea market, it peaks on Saturday with the "scenario." In between are mandatory classes on vehicle driver safety; meetings for role-playing medics, MPs, company commanders and overall commanders (Allied and Axis); and, this year, screenings of the HBO film "When Trumpets Fade." Everything winds up on Saturday night at the officers club with skits, songs and other "period entertainment." A fee of $ 37 (the no-meal plan) gives reenactors, U.S. military veterans or flea market vendors a bed in a barracks for four nights and access to all of the above.
Each side in the scenario is given an objective, time to set up troops and a limited supply of ammunition. Areas in the FIG woods are designated by overall commanders to represent famous sites in the Ardennes. This year the Americans were told to take "St. Vith" and to protect "Bastogne" in the rear, the Germans to achieve the reverse. The scenario changes annually, depending on how many units of which armies sign up to attend. Americans and British turned out in force this year. Two years ago the Germans ruled. (In the battle they took their objective in 45 minutes, crushing the Allies so quickly that the reenactment was reenacted. "They cried and whined," an SS captain told me in disgust. So the Germans caved in and were trounced the second time.)
Brawls have broken out over "kills." Angry cries of "I dispute that hit, pal" are commonly heard when fighting with blanks, although most reenactors confess that "you know when someone's scored a good hit." The dead simply walk off the battlefield and wait for the living to finish.
At 1500 hours the war is whistled to a close.
It's a thankless (and nonpaying) job to keep 900 grown men excited for an afternoon: to compress six weeks into five hours, a 100-mile front into 41/2 kilometers, and plan for a fair fight, knowing there may be a force ratio of 2 to 1 in favor of one side or the other.
William Bethke, a 47-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who works for Boeing in Chantilly, was commander of Allied forces this year as a British brigadier. He has reenacted since 1981, playing a British soldier in the Revolutionary War, a Confederate in the Civil War, and, since 1984, a British commander in World War II. He likes to stress his hobby's positive message. "If you can touch and feel something, you can
better understand it," he says. His wife takes part, too, as an English or Welsh participant.
The trappings of power at the BOB reenactment are nothing to speak of. Bethke pays for some necessities -- photocopying terrain maps and mailing them to commanders in the fall -- out of his own pocket. On the walls of the barracks that constitute Allied headquarters hangs a small poster of Winston Churchill and an aerial view of the FIG base. An old typewriter and a disconnected '40s-era phone sit on a desk. (Chief organizer David Shaw rents the FIG base for $ 60,000 from money collected through dues paid to the World War II Historical Preservation Federation, and from attendees. Any money left over is rolled over to the following year.)
Bethke is aware of the event's unusual status -- "This is the only base on the East Coast that allows civilians to come and play in their sandbox," he says -- and claims the hardest part of his job is getting people to cooperate. "We have some bad officers, some bad sergeants," he says with a sigh. "They don't want to follow orders. All they want to do is fire a gun. Okay. That's fine. I enjoy that, too. But this base has security concerns. We're allowed to be here because of our reputation. Five or six years ago we were known as a loose organization. We have to be stricter now about rules and discipline in part because this isn't the same place it was on September 10th."
Everyone scheduled to fight must submit to a safety and authenticity inspection at 7:30 on Saturday morning. But when we pull in about the same time, things are behind schedule. In the area behind the garages and in front of the firing range where the armies are supposed to muster, ranks are ragged with the missing. An American squad is practice-marching along the lanes between the barracks ("one, two, three, four/I don't want to go to war"), and all over the parking lot late-risers are pulling weapons and winter gear out of car trunks and minivans.
Outside of a Spielberg production, you're not likely to see a finer collection of WWII uniforms and hardware. Trained units of American, German, British, Rus-sian and Canadian reenactors typically turn up. Owners of jeeps and trucks from the period, many of whom belong to the Military Vehicle Preservation Association, drive from as far away as Utah and California. Heavy armor is shipped to the base by rail or semi. The event may be the only opportunity for collectors to show off restored materiel or recent purchases in front of a discerning audience.
Much to everyone's disappointment, no heavy armor has made the trip this year. Sherman tanks, a common sight at previous BOBs, are a no-show. Reenactment veterans speak nostalgically of the late '90s as the heyday at FIG. Enough tanks were on hand in 1996 for them to have a small battle of their own. But the man who owned two panzers had to sell them (one for $ 250,000) to pay for a divorce. Or so goes the story.
Even so, lining up for review and spewing plumes of frosty diesel smoke are an array of German machines: several '40s BMW motorcycles with sidecars, a 1943 Ford truck (manufactured in Germany), a 1943 and a 1944 Kuebelwagen (a scout car), and an eight-wheeled light armored infantry support vehicle in a period reproduction from Florida.
