To my fellow re-enactors and friends;
For those of you that could not attend the Remembrance Day weekend in Gettysburg, I will try to describe to you the feeling of participation in one of the most memorable and moving events of re-enacting. I wish to convey from the heart what it meant for Company D to be represented on the field of Sacrifice and Honor made by those that gave the Last Full Measure.
Many a time we have rode on to a field of grass and dirt, pointed our horses and carbines towards our enemy, pulled the trigger and released the sound of gunpowder igniting. Many a night we enjoyed the camaraderie of the togetherness around a warm fire and each others humor. We have shared the quench of thirst from each others canteen and occasional bottle of rum. We have straightened the collar and jacket of our fellow soldiers to make our presentation as believable as possible. We have spent many a night wondering why we were in a canvas tent during a cold rain. Let us not forget how it is that we have come to do these things and why. Remembrance Day exists for those exact reasons. It is the answer to the why and how.
Our country was founded upon shoulders of men who placed their fate in the belief the world could be better and a mans life could be more valuable if the right state of freedom existed. Not one of the founding fathers could possibly know how the future would unfurl. They struggled with the idea of should they try to insure an ideal future, but pro ceded with the idea of what if they didn’t.
All the signings of documents, all the meetings of representatives, all the design of a Navy and Army, all the laws, all the tariffs, all the grantees could not hold that the United States would survive beyond the end of the Revolutionary War.
War is the most strangest anomalies of human existence. We detest it and fear it. we campaign for and against it in the same breath. We feed upon it for our support of those that fight it and we shun it to protect those that we do not want to fight it. We honor the soldier that engages in it and we scorn those that initiate it. We find .solace in the inventions from it and despair from the destruction it leaves behind. Nations a destroyed by its existence, and others are born from its aftermath. Some of us have worn the uniforms of our nation, all of us wear the uniform of our nation that was. Our nation is, of what all that it has been, and it will be, what is all that it will be.
I write these words to bear perspective of the meaning to stand on the field of grass and dirt, blood and tears, honor and sacrifice, pain and suffering; on the field of remembrance and the field of reverence, and now the field of respect. For on that field we could do no more than bow our heads in respect, raise our flags in respect, play the music in respect, wear our uniforms in respect, march with respect, and then retire with respect. For it was all we as reenactors could extend to those that hold that field for eternity. Is it all we could do? Abraham Lincoln said it; “we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground…”.
For those that could not be there, I missed you. For those that were there, I share with you the memories of the day. To each of us I hope that we will commit to our hearts the desire to continue serving those who have provided for us the freedom to be as we are with the respect we owe them by imitating their sacrifices.
Your Most Humble Servant
Captain Ken Jansen
1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry
Company D
