Guns fire and cannons explode as commands are shouted out by the commanders. Men lay dying on the ground as the gruesome battle rages all around
The grounds around are filled with spectators enjoying the show as the players finish the battle they are reenacting
Why are we doing this? Wasn’t the battle bad enough the first time? With brother fighting brother raining blood upon the ground?
We have all heard our whole lives that it is important to remember our history, so that we do not make the same mistakes again and again.
However isn’t remembering enough? Do we really need to reenact the horrid events year after year?
With so much happening around us such as wars, disease, and economic crisis it’s seems such a vulgar and pointless waist of time.
We of a society that claims to be so civil and intelligent are still dressing up in costume and reliving the death and pain of past wars for entertainment value.
How are we not as bad as the ancient Romans? Granted there is no actual blood shed happening here but the appeal is still the same.
The crowds don’t gather because of the historical inclinations, but rather to watch the players pretend to kill one another.
It is barbaric and needless to do this every year.
This year this tragic farce was held on our own campus at Pierce College. Seeing that this was the reenactment of a historical event I won’t complain that they allowed it on a school campus.
But again I must raise the question why do we feel the need to celebrate the blood shed of our ancestors? You don’t see people reenacting battles from the Vietnam war, or Korea, or even WWII.
Why only the so-called Civil War? Why celebrate the war that was the most tragic to Americans?
Now that is not to say that the Civil War was the worst war that we have been a part of, but it was the war that effected us the most. After all we were killing each other. And not just killing each other but killing each other because wealthy southern plantation owners didn’t want to give up the people they believed they had the right to own.
I’m in awe that this is the war that we would choose to reenact on yearly biases. To go out of our way to re-fight the most bloody and costly battles that we have fought.
Perhaps if we as a country used that wasted energy into finding a cure for our weakened economy we all might be better off.
