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“...The American Revolution centennial in 1876 was in the 19th century, so you could argue that was two centuries ago even though it was 146 years ago...” [ProtectOurFreedom, post 15]

“...Couldn’t experience the sound, the smell, the terrain in a museum...” [mewzilla, post 18]

“Maybe the Civil War re-enactors could carry walkie talkies instead of guns so that nobody is triggered...” [Sirius Lee, post 22]

All of your comments have been pointedly thoughtful, and more succinct than any words I’ve come up with.

The anti-gun and anti-military antics directed at reenacting have been going on for a while.

In autumn 1984 or 1985, my AWI regiment was invited to march in a Christmas parade, in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our commander accepted the invitation. The organizers then told us we would not be allowed to carry our muskets, nor bring along any weapons - something about honoring the “season of peace.” All the usual verbiage followed: peace on Earth, goodwill toward men, etc. Our commander withdrew our acceptance.

For many years, our outfit had marched in an event in Omaha, celebrating the travels of Lewis and Clark through the region. Then one year, the organizers told us we could march, but that we couldn’t bring any “guns” with us. Excuse-mongering included flummery about local laws prohibiting open carry of firearms inside the city limits, spirit of peace and brotherhood, etc. We gave up attending.

In the mid 1990s, organizers of Offutt AFB’s public events told us we would no longer be allowed to perform at the annual open house (our regiment was headquartered in Bellevue, Nebraska). Before our commander could issue a formal statement of any sort, we received a message from the airbase wing commander’s office, telling us we could bring all the weaponry we owned, and we’d be permitted to put on our firepower demo, as we’d done at every open house since our regiment’s founding back in 1975. The entire pre-event dustup came as a surprise, as our regiment - the only unit west of the Mississippi, chartered by the US Bicentennial Commission, the outfit that presented the colors at the kickoff of Offutt’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976 - had long enjoyed close relations with the base. Just who negated our standing invitation, and who forced the re-issuance, we never did find out.

Museums have been suffering similar instances of disapproval. They’ve been afflicted by academic Leftists pushing victimology and invidious revisionism for some time too.

When it was announced in 1994 that B-29-45-MO serial 44-86292 (better known to the public as the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in action) would be almost fully restored for display inside Smithsonian Air & Space Museum at the 50th anniversary of victory in World War Two, the Air Force Association managed to get hold of a draft of the exhibit script. The average American who read the text would have come away convinced that the United States was immensely unfair and racist, to start its war against Imperial Japan with a sneak attack, dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

AFA, other veterans groups, and armed-services support organizations joined forces to get the exhibit text rewritten into something closer to the truth; Martin O Harwit, then Director of the Air & Space Museum, was forced to resign the following year.

I became involved with the planners and organizers of Offutt’s 1995 celebrations of WW2 victory. And just about all of us kept working after that, to plan & stage the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of Strategic Air Command, scheduled for March 1996. At one point in the preparations, I was told in person by Richard P Hallion, USAF’s Chief Historian, that he had resigned from his position as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, because most of the rest of the staff had become devoted Leftists. His work had often been interfered with.