It feels like this is more or less the "Unofficial poke fun at realism players thread"
In my signature there is nearly a platoon size group of men on the move in the suburbs of Stalingrad.
Chances are that every single man in this picture are dead to this day. They were real men fighting for reasons of their own and more or less forgotten by time.
In my time with reenacting I've seen the impact what a little bit of history lesson goes. Do history schools in the United States (or in many countries) care to talk about what happened on the Eastern Front in the second world war? How many people out there take an active interest in how things were? All it takes is a family going out to an airshow and asking a few "weird, virginal, friendless losers" about 'What gun is that?' 'What does this do?' etc. to learn something they otherwise would have no exposure to.
Joining the 305.Pionier-Bataillon has exposed a lot of history of the unit to myself that I otherwise would have never known. 'Saluting' officers sounds beyond stupid. What doesn't sound stupid is using period tactics to crush our enemies that even works in pubbing servers.
On the point of actual military, my father and uncle both serve in the USMC and have done multiple tours overseas into warzones. Doesn't take much to imagine the horrors they endured from the stories they told. Who wants to see dead children or families decapitated because they were caught "helping" American soldiers? Who wants to see someone you could call a brother get blown up by an IED and pick up the pieces to ship back home?
Point is, in the future, who will be around to remind everyone of the horrors they had to endure when they're dead and gone? Books, films, and reenactors. Do you get pissed off at all of the actors in Band of Brothers for portraying dead men? Think about what you're saying.
