WWII Re-enacting.

IM joining a WWII reenacting troop after i get setteled in the air force. i will probally be doing a german unit of some sort Heer or SS. i havent chose what yet though. probple is my mom is kinda sore with me doing the whole german thing with the holocaust and all. i know that the uniots are not political or anything be she wont listen to me and i cant ware my stuff in her house. what should i tell her?

You can explain to her that, its like a movie and thats the role you got. I'm guessing she's Jewish, so I would be a bit respectful about getting deeply involved with it.

Why not take her advice?
Its just bloody stupid playacting over events that were horrific and where many people were killed. Can you imagine the survivors wanting to take part in it, or even support it?

How about play acting a car crash, or a murder of a famous person, its at that level of stupidity.

It takes away the reality and importance of an event when kids in old uniforms go bang bang with play guns trying to emulate what real men did and died doing. It should be commemorated not emulated.

Originally posted by Netchicken
Why not take her advice?
Its just bloody stupid playacting over events that were horrific and where many people were killed. Can you imagine the survivors wanting to take part in it, or even support it?

How about play acting a car crash, or a murder of a famous person, its at that level of stupidity.

It takes away the reality and importance of an event when kids in old uniforms go bang bang with play guns trying to emulate what real men did and died doing. It should be commemorated not emulated.

As long as it is not forgotten. My family got "lucky", my Grandfather was at Dieppe and Dunkirk and Arnheim. Survived them. Never forget what they did for us.

Sorry for my rant Ivan, but when I saw it on TV I though how immature it was.

Maybe your mother is upset because, if she is from the Soviet Union, people in those uniforms killed millions of her parents generations. If it was YOUR parents who were killed wouldn't YOU be a little upset over it?

It one thing not to forget it and commmemorate it, but to turn it into a form of entertainment, It,s pathetic. Who is it aimed at? Why not also reenact the women raped, the Jews slaughtered, or the populace terrorised and killed?

Who said it was entertainment? Maybe it was the way for a generation that doesn't know what REAL war is about, to HONOR those before them.

Come on Intrepid

In what way does this honor the people involved? Are their names read out? Are their efforts individually remembered?

If you want that then a dawn service, or wreathes at a memorial, mean something.

If you want to know what real war is about there are heaps of educational material, and survivors around to find out.

This is a sanitized, packaged, plastic imitation of the reality. Unless of course the audience turn around to find their friend has had their head blown off. Or the spectators get shot with real bullets. That way if they want to learn of the horrors of war an exercise would be useful.

There are no screaming wounded, no blood, no "real" heroism, no smell of death, no fear, no reality.

Its entertainment for a generation who knows nothing else.

BTW this is not directed at ivan (so sorry if it looks like it), but at the concept in general.

[Edited on 14-6-2004 by Netchicken]

NC, I understand what you are saying, but without BEING there you have NO idea as to what they went through. To start with Dieppe wasn't even part of your war, if you are American, it happened before the US got involved. I think that this might be an attempt to understand what it was like for their GP's. What's wrong with that? I had my whole life to talk to my Grandfather about WW2. Maybe he doesn't have that opportunity, because his GP's are dead.

... so playing at being at war gives you that information?

No way..... Intrepid my nationalitiy has nothing at all to do with the argument. Nor does the ability for me or anyone else to ask their relatives.

Originally posted by Netchicken
... so playing at being at war gives you that information?

No way..... Intrepid my nationalitiy has nothing at all to do with the argument. Nor does the ability for me or anyone else to ask their relatives.

No, not information, that is readily available anywhere. A sense of what it was like, the atmospere so to speak, of the war.

But thats my entire point. reenactments do NOT give the sence of what war was like, you have people standing around as spectators, being entertained.

Imagine you were german and saw the paratroopers floating down at you, or in the pillboxes on the beach and saw the soldiers landing.

Or If you were an allied soldier and had to run up the beach seeing your buddies dead, and getting shot at. Watching your friends being picked off, and screaming as they die.

There is no way a reenactment shows this, it sanitizes it, it makes it a packaged good, devoid of any reality. It removes terror, fear, horror, and bravery and instead turns it into entertainment.

Its nothing more than actors and kids playing a game, you might as well say "A computer game of WW2 honours the people who fought in it". Ther eis NO reality.

Point taken. I hadn't thought about it that way. Thanks.

If it's mom's house, and her wishes, they should be respected....simple as that really, regardless of how you feel about it...

It's a basic matter of respect, not beliefs.....

Originally posted by Netchicken
Why not take her advice?
Its just bloody stupid playacting over events that were horrific and where many people were killed. Can you imagine the survivors wanting to take part in it, or even support it?

How about play acting a car crash, or a murder of a famous person, its at that level of stupidity.

It takes away the reality and importance of an event when kids in old uniforms go bang bang with play guns trying to emulate what real men did and died doing. It should be commemorated not emulated.

we do it so something like WWII never happens again.

Originally posted by JediMaster
You can explain to her that, its like a movie and thats the role you got. I'm guessing she's Jewish, so I would be a bit respectful about getting deeply involved with it.

oh no shes not jewish. she just has a probelm with it