The Free Press, Mankato, MN - War re-enactment draws vets

Mon, Nov 23 2009

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German armor and troops move into defensive positions for a re-enactment of the D-Day invasion.
/ John Cross

Spectators huddle beneath umbrellas as they watch a re-enactment of a D-Day battle at Traxlers Hunting Preserve near Le Center Saturday.
/ John Cross

American soliders advance on German positions in a re-enactment Saturday of a D-Day battle.
/ John Cross

Garrett Borton adds a degree of authenticity to Living History Day as a German armed guard manning a check-point into Traxler's Hunting Preserve.
/ John Cross

War re-enactment draws vets

Weather added to realistic feeling

By Mark Fischenich
Free Press Staff Writer

With the explosions, machine-gun fire, German half-tracks and Sherman tank, soggy infantry men firing rifles and mortars, the WW II battle was the most dramatic of the day’s demonstrations.

Just before the battle began, Rios talked about the two-fold lesson he wants his kids to learn.

The first: “That we should never enter into war lightly, and we need to remember that war is usually the last option.”

And the second: “To thank our troops — current and former — that have served in our armed forces.”

Jim Boemer, who served on Guam, thought Saturday’s weather provided a small lesson about the more mundane misery that soldiers faced during World War II. Americans fought in the scorching desert of North Africa, the bitter cold of Germany and the rain-soaked mud and volcanic ash of Pacific islands.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “The conditions of war in some of these zones were beyond belief.”

He wanted to venerate, with his attendance on a damp and chilly day, all of the soldiers who served in wars from the country’s founding to the present. And he wanted to honor the service of all of the troops — even the Army guys.

“Our very existence depends on what happened,” he said. “It’s why we are what we are today. We’re still the free nation that we are today because of the sacrifices that were made in the past.”

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