Vietnam Buffs Bring Jungle to Va.

[GoBlue]

Reenactors Evoke a War Many Would Rather Forget

By Phuong Ly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 8, 2005; Page A01

Leaves rustled, and Robby Gouge, sweating in his jungle boots and Army fatigues, clutched his semiautomatic rifle tighter. He walked slightly crouched and listened intently, just as he thought his father might have done.

The 30-year-old son had come to the oak forests of central Virginia to relive his old man's war in Vietnam.


Walking behind Gouge on this hazy summer morning were a dozen men, toting gear culled from military surplus stores. Another team had fanned across the other side of the woods. A few men and women, dressed in the black pajamas of enemy fighters, waited in ambush.

Most war reenactments are staged to make history come alive for generations who know it only dimly from books. Vietnam, though, isn't quite history. To many people, it's a painfully current event.

-more- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/07/AR2005080700913.html

Perhaps:
Those who forget the past are dooming themselves.
Those who live in the past are already there.