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Veterans Confront a Taste of Battle

Jul- 2-2005 » Filed Under: Michael Oreskovic

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By Michael E. Ruane, Washington Post

GETTYSBURG, Pa. The petite young woman with the ponytail, hoop earrings and little red knapsack holds her fingers in her ears and shudders with each crash of the cannon.

One by one, the line of Civil War-era artillery pieces goes off -- shh-BOOM! -- each one a little closer, and each one a little more jarring. As the shots come near, the woman has both hands covering the sides of her face, and with the final blast, about 30 feet distant, she turns away in pain as if she has just been slapped.

The firing is, of course, make-believe war -- a masquerade attended by perspiring men and women in gaudy period costume. But as Army Spec. Kristina Steinmetz, 23, looks on here during a visit from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, she is having trouble separating the pretend war from the real thing.

The occasion is a sprawling weekend reenactment of the battle of Gettysburg staged across freshly mowed farmland in the fields north of town. Steinmetz, who is recovering from combat stress at Walter Reed, had come to the reenactment with two wounded comrades on an outing hosted by a soldiers support agency called Operation Second Chance Inc.

Steinmetz, of Phillipsburg, N.J., Michael Oreskovic, 23, of Eugene, Ore., and Harold Peckenpaugh, 19, of Attica, N.Y., had been eager to make the trip. The three are close friends, and it had been their idea: a three-day weekend away from the hospital. Peckenpaugh had been a reenactor before entering the Army, and his old Civil War outfit was going to be in the battle. Steinmetz and Oreskovic, a military history buff, had never been to Gettysburg. [...]

Related Article: The Contra Costa Times carries a version of the article that does not require registration.


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