An election year already notable for its menagerie of extreme and unusual candidates can add another one: Rich Iott, the Republican nominee for Congress from Ohio's 9th District, and a Tea Party favorite, who for years donned a German Waffen SS uniform and participated in Nazi re-enactments.
OMG! An historical re-enactor! Run for the hills! You might learn something!
And don't think this is anything other than that. Buried in the story, way beneath reminding people that the Nazi were really bad - where would we be without journalists to remind us of that? - we read:
In a follow-up email today, Iott seemed at pains to address concerns that his conduct may have alienated veterans groups but made no specific mention of possible offense to Jews or human rights groups: "Never, in any of my reenacting of military history, have I meant any disrespect to anyone who served in our military or anyone who has been affected by the tragedy of war. In fact, I have immense respect for veterans who served our country valiantly, and my respect of the military and our veterans is one of the reasons I have actively studied military history throughout my life." He added that he has participated in re-enactments as a Civil War Union infantryman, a World War I dough boy and World War II American infantryman and paratrooper.
God only knows what the author of this piece, one Joshua Green, is smoking if he believes veterans are "upset" with re-enactors. Which kinda reinforces just how, frankly, stupid he is. After all, the closest he seems to have ever been to the military is his work on The Onion. Trust me Joshua, the kinds of people veterans really have no respect for are journalists like yourself who, presumably because of the multitude of paper cuts they have received in their editorial duties, believe they can speak for them.
I spent three years working at an historical park which attracted a lot of veterans, and not a few number of re-enactors doing Civil War and World War II events. Believe it or not when they performed a WWII era assault they had enemy Nazis they "attacked." Maybe Mr. Green is so ignorant about the conditions of war he believes a re-enacted battle could be held with participants from one side only. (When you come across something this moronic anything is possible I guess.) In any event, the re-enactment attracted lots of WWII vets and not one of them complained about the presence of German re-enactors. I guess its too bad Joshua Green wasn't around to tell them how they were supposed to feel.
I'll cheerfully admit re-enactors and other amateur historian types who really get into this stuff are a little odd. Anyone who ever read Tony Horwitz's fantastic book Confederates In The Attic knows that. Some of them are downright nut jobs. But so are some members of Congress. The guy who had an entire German Panzer division in miniature, which was set up in an exhibit room at the park, was not your average Joe to be sure. However, the exhibit itself attracted hundreds of vets who were interested in seeing that. Maybe Green thinks they too are secret Nazis?
Maybe I am too! After all, I can see wargames in the closet behind me. I have played the Nazi side countless times! So I must have fascist sympathies, right?
It gets worse then that! I've played the USSR side too, so I must also have commie sympathies. I've also played the British in Revolutionary War games, so I'm a Benedict Arnold as well; I've played the Confederate side in many a game, so chalk me up for a racist as well. Hell, I've even played the Saruman side in the Battle of Helm's Deep. Just how evil can one sonofabitch be!!??
BTW: Althouse points out that Green, in addition to being a nitwit, is also an unethical journalist.
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