Playing war for fun and knowledge

by Scott Timmons

(Special for the Valley Voice; used with the author's permission.)

Think of it as adult Halloween combined with living history.

Tricks and treats include colorful uniforms, booming cannon and musketry, playing dead, drifting smoke.

The 20^th annual Old Ford MacArthur Days takes place at San Pedro on the weekend after July Fourth, on a hillside overlooking the blue Pacific and Catalina Island on the horizon. The 50 re-enactor groups include the usual, American Civil War and World War II, and the unexpected: four guys as World War I German soldiers, a dozen Loyalists from the Spanish Civil War, and English Renaissance pike men, ribbons and lace a-fluttering.

If playing war on a weekend when three Americans are blown up in Iraq and Shiite gunmen murder dozens of Sunnis in Baghdad bothers anyone, no one mentions it.

Strolling the grounds are Confederate General Picket (he of the disastrous hat-on-his-sword charge at Gettysburg), Admiral Lord Nelson (both arms intact) and General Douglas MacArthur (with corncob pipe).

I am here as a dressed-up guest of Legion VI Victorious, one of two participating Roman legions. Its “impression” is that of the Roman legion posted to northern Britain in the second century A.D. during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. There they built the wall bearing his name meant to keep the barbaric Picts out of Roman Britain. My connection is my friend David Michaels and his daughter Alexandra of Castaic, formerly of Visalia.

We strive to make our camp or castra period perfect: no “farb” or far-be-it-from-authentic things should be visible, no cell phones, sleeping bags, non-Roman clothing, and no eye glasses, so I squint.

Many re-enactors are actual veterans. Tom Salemi, a National Guardsman from the San Fernando Valley, came home in April from Iraq. A member emeritus of Legion VI, Tom now wears the baggy olive drab uniform of the U.S. Army in World War II, an M-1 carbine slung over his shoulder, period-correct Camel cigarettes strapped to the outside of his steel-pot helmet.

“You’ve just come back from a year of being a real soldier. Why would you want to play soldier?” I ask.

            “This is more fun,” he says and follows with another throw-away line: “I spent most of my tour buying stuff on E-bay.”

The legion motto is Docendo decimus. We learn by teaching. A pledge they take seriously, from getting the gear right to knowing the history. Visitors to camp ask questions about costume, weapons, politics, and the dozen members here, like docents, answer knowledgeably.

My gear includes:

·         caligae or Roman hobnailed sandals; after two days in these my feet are filthy,

·         a red tunic, two rectangular pieces of cloth sewn with holes for head and arms,

·         a subarmalis, a wool pullover vest, also red, with padded shoulders,

·         the lorica segmentata; the banded metal cuirass or body armor is nearly impossible to get on or off without help,

·         a leather belt with cingulum, a jingly bunch of short leather strips decorated with metalwork that hangs before your, ahem, vulnerables,

·         the gladius, the short, hilt-less Roman sword, in a scabbard hanging from a shoulder strap,

·         the scutum or shield, a curved, elaborately painted piece of wood about 4 feet tall and 2½ feet wide,

·         the pilum, a spear designed to break after impaling its target so it can’t be thrown back,

·         and the helmet. Legionaries wear the unplumed imperial infantry helmet, which has hinged cheek flaps and a wide flange at the back to protect the neck. The more familiar plumed Attic helmet is worn by members of the Praetorian Guard, such as Jim Whitley of North Hollywood, who saw combat in the First Gulf War as a Marine officer.

For good photographs, see the legion webpage at www.legionsix.org.

            The event’s high points are the “battles.” Field cannon boom, and in distant parking lots car alarms warble in answer.

            Our turn, we advance into the field against our enemy, Legion IX. As we’re slated to win this one, Legion IX falls back, and when Dave orders us to draw our swords, I’m acutely aware that I’m holding a weapon—unsharpened edges and dull point notwithstanding. We wave our gladiuses aloft, but rather than thrusting with them, we tap our adversaries’ shields and helmets, and our foes fall in slow motion.

            Such battles are organized, says member Norm Morris of Denver, a former Marine. “You know ahead of time who you’re going to fight and who’s going to ‘die.’ Sometimes you get some kid who’s, like, ‘I’m invincible! Aaaarrgh!’ And he starts wailing on some guy.

            “Then two or three other guys who are doing their choreographed thing will break off and dog pile on the kid, and he gets the message, ‘Oh, I’m dead.’”

            Engagements also include “silly battles,” which might start with Roman legions facing off against each other, to be joined by English pike men, who are mowed down by American Civil War volleys, all of whom finally succumb to Vietnam-era weaponry.

In one such silly battle, I’m crossing the field looking for Dave, who has fallen, when I fall to a Confederate volley. Lying on my back on the crowded field—like nap time in kindergarten—holding my shield over me, I can see the Bonnie Blue (Confederate) Flag in one corner of my vision, billowing musket barrels in another, and in yet another pirates leaping about looting the dead, including Alexandra swooping down to snatch her father’s sword!