My favorite part about going to an event as a campaigner...

[cblodg]

Okay;

Lets here why we go to events as campaigners.

My personal favorite, I have everything on my back, my self and my pard get to the parking lot early, change, and leave.

Don't have to drag his car down to the main camp and spend another hour plus packing up the dog tents and extra gear.

So what's yours, and you can repeat.

Chris

[bill watson]

The conversion from "event-think" to "military think." Operating by the bugle instead of the schedule. By Sunday morning, the conversion into an actual unit that can pick up and move in ten minutes, deploy, fortify and fight. Seeing guys make do with very little and be comfortable doing it. Seeing guys do things they didn't think they could do. Seeing guys get a taste, at least, of what it was like.

[flattop32355]

Doing what I didn't think I could do.

Getting a better feel for how it was really done.

Better combat scenarios. Fighting in the woods, crossing streams; crossing terrain, not just parked in a field at close range.

Building a believeable breastworks or entrenchment in half an hour out of the materials at hand. I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't done it.

Combining rations and labor to create a meal worth eating.

Many, many more......

[tenfed1861]

Being able to leave at a moments notice.Getting to do good quality events without having to worry about a bunch of farbs farbing it up.Being asked to do stuff for "Wide Awake".Getting into the mind of the actual men we portray.
Cullen Smith

[madisontigers]

Yes, and it goves you more respect for what those men went through. It's also hard to convey to the public how difficult a soldiers life was. With beer cans, coolers,sleeping bags, cots, and tons of straw around people tend tp not look at the possible sacrifies the men, we are attempting to portray, may have suffered through.I always feel like I have challenged myself, gone through with that challenge, and help the public understand the sacrifices those men made.

Regards,
David Long

[Rob]

Being able to get everything from the car to the camp, and vice versa, in one trip.

[VaTrooper]

Getting to leave my mainstream pards behind.

[Wild Rover]

Getting a real Civil War experience.

Not a watered down version thereof.

Pards,

[FWL]

Getting pretty good cooking that period food in a mucket or canteen half. Actually created a recipe I am using at home (is that bad or what). Pork and rice stew at home on Friday, night watch the Sox beat the Yankees. Clean my musket. Life is good.

[Bill_Cross]

Imagining what THEY experienced, since we can't really experience it (though it's harder when the person next to you is eating Pop Tarts or talking about going to "sutler row").

Bringing together disparite pards and groups, often from all over the place, to build a working facimile of the unit we're portraying.

Fir-per. Yes, first person. I love it. Hate listening to hobby politics or other modern ****. Give me a chance to speak German, and I'm there for the weekend.

Making do with what's at hand for cleaning my rifle (it seems I have 50 different cleaners, tools and paraphenalia at home). Amazing what a piece of cloth and some cinders can do for brass, too.

Watching the amazing impressions of fellow campaigners. Not just the gear. Will never forget the "camp show" put on by the participants at "Berkeley Hundred" years back. The "Pyramis and Thisbee" scene from "A Mid-Summer's Night's Dream" will never be the same for me. Or remembering an inebriated Rich Hill going down to the laundresses' tent and challenging them to a game of base ball.

Waking up Sunday morning with my three day's rations in my belly Friday night and thinking "I understand better why foraging was worth a court martial or even death."

Hating my officers because they make us do military things and show up to events with a schedule that rivals what THEY did back then, not meeting Saturday AM to figure out what to do until the sham battle. Hating ossifers is period-correct.

Doing the simple, everyday things THEY did, like:

1.) building a fire in the rain with wet matches with Fran Kiger;

2.) spooning with my son despite his twitching in his sleep;

3.) listening to fellow Rowdy Pards read from a dime novel in the mist while on guard duty;

4.) watching retired RP Amos Reynolds slink through the night like an Indian fighter;

5.) stumbling through the Wilderness, where the black powder smoke and the brambles and trees cut visibility to a few feet;

6.) listening to Bill Rodman complain;

7.) working with fine people to build events that bring home a more encompassing experience.

That's enough, let me pass the mike to someone else.