1066

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill



One consequence of spending three decades in formal education is that you inevitably wind up in a lecture asking yourself: "Who in the world could possibly give a rat's crap about this stuff?" Such was the case in my medical school genetics course when they started talking about sonic hedgehog and I realized much to my disappointment that the word "sega" was not to be introduced in the discussion at any point. In contrast, there have been other times when I sat back and marveled at what I was being taught, thinking: "I don't care what profession you're in, this stuff is completely relevant." This was my college experience with the many Military Arts and Sciences courses I was required to take. Consequently, I don't think there will ever be a day when I'll grow weary of seeing and learning about the battle sights that shaped history. After being blown away by Bunker Hill and Gettysburg, you can imagine my excitement at traveling to a continent that offers Agincourt, Waterloo, and of course Normandy.

So it was that on the exact date of the 940th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings that I found myself in East Sussex watching a reenactment of the decisive victory in the Norman conquest of England. It was during this conflict that William the Conqueror defeated King Harold II and remains the last time that England was occupied by a foreign power. This was my first time watching a reenactment, and I have to admit that in retrospect I actually prefer viewing the empty field and letting my imagination run wild. Call me a perfectionist, but I maintain that the fight scene in the 19swhmarmaea {covering mouth with hand} Robbinsdale Armstrong High School production of "Shane 2: The Revenge of the Shane" was superior in every aspect. Granted, I may be a little biased having directed and starred in that film. Don't worry if you haven't seen it, we never released it on video...that's how you develop a cult following. Anyway, I think what was really missing from this reenactment was some closeups of the blood and gore that was surely a major element in the struggle. I'm thinking next year we put up massive projection screens encircling the battlefield and then have about a dozen soldiers wearing helmet cams. The climax of the battle would come when we see one of the Norman knights ride up to Harold and swing his axe just below his helmet cam. The next thing we would see is his head falling off (from the first-person perspective) back and to the left...back and to the left. I realize that this may not be entirely historically accurate, but for the sake of the children in the audience I think we should give them something to remember. To clarify, they haven't asked me to do the writing for this but the ideas just keep popping...