On Roles and Role Playing in America

Co.G 143rd ABN RNGR LRRP

 

 

 

 

Many years ago, after returning from a tour in the Republic of Panama,  I joined a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, ABN/ Ranger Unit, garrisoned in Texas and was posted as a Senior Scout on the team. We were not the standard “Kick in the door” Rangers as our mission was an LRRP one with our area of operation, in the event of war, running from about ten miles to one thousand miles behind the forward edge of battle area, with intelligence gathering as its focus. We were an attachment of an MI Brigade. My buddies there were a great group of guys and I learned a lot about gathering intelligence and its application to the battlefield.                                               
We would regularly train in the National Forests of Texas and in the forests of many other states, as well as on military reservations in Texas and across the U.S. On one of these training missions, we were practicing inserting our teams with rubber boats into water from helicopters. We would be inserted (here the technical term "insertion" is used for jumping out the back of the moving aircraft in full equipment, holding on to the sides of a rubber boat) into the large reservoir by CH 47, then a waterborne movement to a bridge where we would gather intelligence about the bridge, measurements, traffic on the bridge and water and any other intelligence pertinent to the mission and then execute a waterborne movement to land where we would travel overland to an extraction point and be extracted by helicopter. A typical LRRP type mission, (just shorter).
This mission went just as smooth as it could. We didn’t make a ripple in the lake or any of the goings on there. We gathered our intel and made our way to shore around 0300 hours, where we deflated the boat and hid it in the brush under some dirt, limbs and some trash we picked up at the shoreline. Being the Senior Scout, I was in charge of finding our routes of travel and then scouting the way ahead on our missions. Locating danger areas and then relaying this information to the team leader for decisions on how to proceed.
After removing all traces of our landing, I began a recon of the trails leading away from the shore, and immediately heard voices in the woods, maybe thirty yards or so ahead. LRRP SOP requires that team members never be seen or heard. Never do anything which might lead the enemy to know, or even think, that a LRRP team has been in the area gathering intel. Infractions of this rule are forbidden. Once the opposing force is made aware that you have been there, the probability they will change things and or make additional preparations which will compromise most of the data you took such great pains to acquire, is quite likely.
I began working my way towards the voices and as I got closer, I could make out that the the voices sounded strange. Obviously being in Texas, I expected them to be in English, or perhaps even, Spanish. And while the general sound of the voices were in English, they had a strange quality to them and some words indeed sounded unintelligible or foreign. I made my way to within ten or fifteen feet of a small group of men talking and stopped to listen and watch them. I could only make out vague shapes in the dark. But I could tell that they were in some kind of uniform and were armed, and for some reason, were speaking in bad German accents.
I was just about to break every rule in the LRRP handbook and walk over and find out who they were and what they were doing there, when one of the guys said he had to relieve himself. He walked toward me and stopped right beside me and made ready to begin his project. I took this opportunity to quietly slide in behind him and take him with my Ka-bar. (I used the blunt side) And quietly told him to keep walking. Once far enough away I turned him around and to my astonishment, could see he was wearing a complete German SS Infantryman’s uniform.

Nazi Reenactors

I was stunned. We were on a fake mission to gather intel on a bridge in Texas. Had made our way to an obscure landing point and found it occupied by Nazis in SS uniforms. I had one of those weird moments where you question what you are seeing and then your mind races to find a solution to what your eyes are telling you. Dozens of explanations are simultaneously viewed as possibilities, including a momentary,(.0001 seconds), thought that some how, some way, I had crossed through a fold in time and space, and I was actually in Nazi Germany from 40 years ago.
I took a moment, and rejecting most of the theories my brain was presenting, asked him what exactly the hell was going on. It turns out they were members of a WWII Reenactors Group, participating in a WWII exercise, portraying German units engaged in the Battle of the Bulge, in Belgium, at exactly the same time that we were using the area for gathering intel in the Republic of Georgia, Union of Soviet Socialists Republic. It is a small world, especially when you lay Western Europe and Russia on top of Texas.
I talked with him a while asking him about his group and its activities, then unceremoniously released him and continued on with my mission. It was my first contact with a Reenactor, or even the idea of reenacting. And I did not think to ask him the pressing question I have had about that encounter until this day. Why? Not why be a reenactor, that is neither here nor there. People have all types of desires and hobbies and I find this one actually, to be intriguing. But why, I meant to ask him, a Nazi?
There are reenactor groups all over the country, all over the world. Reenacting wars and battles that have occurred since the beginning of time. I imagine the current fascination with cavemen, in insurance commercials and television sitcoms, will spawn a group with the agenda of reenacting early battles between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens, if they are in fact, not already being fought as we speak.
We count among the members of the Revolutionary War Veterans Association several members I know of who belong to reenactor groups. They take their groups to schools and universities around the states they reside in and teach people about the American Revolutionary War. How American Colonials dressed and ate and lived in that time period. I think this is a wonderful and needed function of these groups. But even if all they wanted to do was stage reenactments of Revolutionary War battles, that would be great too. I have no qualms with this and find it very appealing. I have not donned a Revolutionary War costume yet, though I might well do so some day soon and take the program to schools in my area and teach them about our forefathers and their ways and ideas.
However, the fact remains that to stage a battle between two opposing forces from an historical event, you will need troops from both sides. In this case American and British forces. Finding the men to portray American Forces seems rather simple. It would seem that people would be very interested in putting on the costume of one of our American Heroes. Perhaps a General Washington, a Colonel Barrett, or a Captain Issac Davis. These men were heroes worthy of emulation. But where will you get the British forces? The General Gages, the Colonel Smiths, the Major Pitcairns and the Jesse Adairs? Or, the Banastre Tareltons?
Is there a large population of British exiles in America to draw from? Are these men who represent the British all actually British citizens? And if not, what makes a man decide to become a reenactor on the wrong side of the war? And don’t misunderstand me, I have a great deal of respect for the soldiers of other nations whom we have engaged in battle. The men who fought honorably for their nations deserve the respect of their nations and of ours for their courage and sacrifices in representing their countries honorably on fields of battle. The men who fought dishonorably, on any side, wrapping themselves in their countries flags in order to commit atrocities and crimes against people and property, deserve no respect. And their judgment will come.
And so, there are people who will dress up as Adolph Hitler, tiny little mustache and all, and prance around in Nazi uniforms. People who want to dress as Imperial Storm Troopers and track down Luke Skywalker and drag him back to Darth Vader (who someone else is playing) . People who will want to be German soldiers in reenactment wars, or dress in British uniforms and shoot Colonials in Revolutionary War battles. People who they admire and want to emulate. Fine, no problem.
I am sure you could find people to take any side in any battle that has ever been fought. But, my question remains, how do they decide the role they will play, and why
As a child I remember playing the part of Audy Murphy in the westerns and in his WWII movies. I was always the “Good Guy” sheriff, tracking down desperadoes and outlaws. I was always the American platoon Sargent in the WWII and WWI wars we acted out in backyards across the neighborhoods and schoolyards. Back then it was hard to get anyone to play the bad guys. Usually it turned out to be the smaller kids and kid brothers who wanted to play, but were only allowed to play if they would accept the role of the evil German soldiers or the bad outlaws. They didn’t want to, but they had no choice. Take the assigned part of bad guy, and get bruised and pummeled by the rest of us, or don’t accept it, and get bruised and pummeled by the rest of us.
These days, it seems harder and harder to find children who will stand in the ranks with the Dough Boys and Yanks, than it is to find kids willing to be the “Super Bad Nazi Dudes”, or the “Gangstas”. Of course to kids nowadays, the word Nazi has little meaning and is usually reserved for, or thought to represent, Conservatives/Republicans.

Banastre Tarleton

 What has happened in America? When I was looking at reenactment groups recently in order to ask some of them to come to Appleseeds and give the attendees some idea of what early American Soldiers Looked like, what they wore and how they acted in ranks, I found dozens of sites that were dedicated to the British born, Banastre Tarleton. A Colonel in the British army who followed a “total war” ideology. Any and all enemies of the British were to be dispatched by any means necessary, including any civilians who gave aid and comfort the the enemy.
Colonel William Tavington, the sinister cavalry officer in the movie, “The Patriot” is based on Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton and his exploits in America during the Revolutionary War. He was the one who herded the civilian population of the town into the church, chained the doors and fired the church. Not a nice man, and yet there are literally hundreds of Americans emulating and praising this British Officer. If they were British citizens I could better understand it, maybe, but I wrote to several of them asking if they were English, and they were not, they were Americans. Or, without trying to qualify what it takes to make an individual an American, their response to my inquiry informed me that they had been been born here to American parents.
But they have chosen to play the role of Banastre Tarleton in their fantasy lives. Every single day, people all over the world play out the roles they have been cast in, or selected. Some roles are better than others. Sometimes we pick our roles and sometimes they are picked for us. But we can always change the roles we play in our lives, we can trade them in for new roles. We can become the heroes we have always dreamed of, we can alter and adapt the roles we play, in real life in a meaningful way, and not just in fantasy.
At Appleseed we have simplified the roles we have selected for Americans, by dividing them into just two categories. We use a “USS America” analogy. We use this analogy quite often in our discussions, and we are casting people for roles in this analogous story every day. The scene we are casting for in our story, shows passengers on an antiquated, but beautiful cruise liner. After a collision with an iceberg, it appears the ship is sinking. Water is rising fast and the decks on this multiple deck ship are rapidly passing under the water one by one.
There is a crowd gathered on the uppermost deck, and they are split into two groups. The first group( the largest of the two by far) has people who are crying and moaning. Some who are ignoring the event altogether and acting as if it were not actually happening and that they were in the midst of a gay evening on the ship, chatting and giggling among themselves. Some are just sitting there glassy eyed and muttering to themselves over and over, “How did this happen? Oh Why!, oh why, and What, oh what, will we ever do?.” But not doing anything, just repeating their mantra over and over again as if it were some catechism that will save them merely by its inane repetition.

The Titanic

The second group is quickly forming work brigades to handle the evacuation of water by bailing it into buckets and then moving the buckets from the ships interiors to the railing where it can be poured over the side and then sending the buckets back for more. Still others are attempting to ascertain the location and extent of damages occurred by the collision. Then gathering supplies in order to make repairs. Still others are seeking medical aid for anyone injured in the collision, in the bailing effort, or by the stampede of the ships crew to get to the life rafts and desert the ship. Some are searching for, finding and preparing food and water for the people who are bailing to eat and drink.
In this scenario, before the volunteers for the “Bucket Brigade” were allowed to volunteer, they had been asked, “Do you believe we can win this battle with the rising water?, and, even if you do not, will you continue to bail even as the water reaches your neck, your chin, your nose?”. If they answered yes they were allowed the honor of volunteering to help. The consensus was that no one would be a whiner or a doubter and no one would be allowed to stand in the hallway or port side doors, bemoaning their fate, and idling away their time while others bailed in their stead.
The second group have committed themselves to a course of action, in order to save themselves and their ship.The first group have committed themselves to a course of action which compells them to do everything and anything but help themselves. The first groups course also requires them to criticize and rebuke the players in the second group for having a love of their ship, and a common cause which unites them, rather than seeking the satisfaction of their own personal “needs” and “feelings” first, which would require them to remain idle until someone satisfied those needs.
As I mentioned earlier, no roles are permanent. A role in the first group where you laugh and idle away your time, listen to the band play on as the ship, which is carrying your wife and children aboard as passengers, slips beneath the waves, plunging to a watery grave thousands of feet below the surface, may be exchanged for a role in the second group, with ease.
Ships may be later constructed which can be christened with the same name, but they will never be the same ship. You may survive the event and some day marry again, perhaps have children again, but they will not replace the wife and children you lost.
At the same time men and women from the second group, the bailing party, may indeed become tired and weary. They may become disenchanted with the constant bailing they are doing which to them, seems to be doing no more than just allowing the ship to sink at a slower rate, rather than any actual gains being made in the saving of the ship.
Because of the few hands doing the job of many, they feel worn and abused and become disheartened and decide that perhaps it is just as well if the ship sinks. Or they may feel some real or perceived slight has impugned their honor,or injured their feelings, and leave in a huff. Vowing to laugh as the ship sinks, even to drill holes in the hull to help scuttle it. Perhaps even puncture the buckets their former mates are using to bail with, vowing that it is better the whole ship go down than their own personal dignity be wounded by a word here or there asking them to hasten the bailing, lest the ship sink beneath their feet. Oh!, how can all the trouble and misery be worth it? And they eventually leave for the first group.
The people we look for at Appleseed, are the people from the “Bucket Brigade” group, who have left their egos at the door when they received a mission of such dire importance, people who will continue to bail even as their heads slip beneath the water. The kind of men George Washington was speaking of when he wrote to congress about the type of soldiers he needed, “The type of men who wil make a brave defense when success is very doubtful and falling into the enemy’s hands is very probable”. And we are finding them every day. Real Americans who are willing to exchange the role they were playing, for one America needs them to play now.
And have no doubts, everyone in America is playing a role in this scenario today. Every single person. Have you thought about which role you are playing? The decision about which group you will belong to is a personal one. No one can make it for you. It is a decision that clarifies your character, illuminates it, and makes it visible to all.