My three favorite MTL products to spend your hardly earned holiday cash on
Christmas money can be spent any way you want. I was at a tattoo shop today and the line to get in was nearly around the block. Everyone I talked to was there to blow there holiday cash. Wouldn't be my choice to spend my hardly earned xmas money, but to each their own.
I prefer to spend mine on something a little more useful, though hardly any more practical. WWII reenacting gear.
Naturally Man The Line is my go to source for everything O.D., and although I'm naturally biased, I feel it's appropriate to pitch a few of my most wanted items.
So, here are my top three Man The Line items to spend your Christmas money on.
Being primarily an airborne reenactor, these are the first item on my list. I've seen all manor of leather gloves being used by reenactors as "jump gloves" but I can honestly and without bias say these are the best reproductions I've seen so far. Many other reproductions look very much like originals, but the feel of these gloves sets them apart. Reproduction gloves tend to be stiff and uncomfortable, and never seem to fit. These are soft and comfy, with a natural color that doesn't stand out like some of those neon yellow jobs I've seen floating around at events in the past. Work them in with a little dirt sweat and water and they'll look great, feel great and form to the shape of your hands for the perfect protection for your fingers.
2. USMC 1941 "782" Upper and Lower Combat Field Equipment Pack
PTO is a growing faction of WWII reenacting. Thanks to films like "The Pacific" and "Heartbreak Ridge" many reenactors are being more intrigued by the idea of "stomping through the Solomons." With that new wave of reenacting comes a far greater number of USMC events and impressions. And no piece of gear is more important to a Marine impression than the "782" pack. I started my USMC impression a little over a year ago and have been piecing away at it since then. The 782 is tops on my list of "next to buy" and while I don't have it yet I have gotten my mitts on one of MTL's repros recently. Top notch as always, the most intriguing part of this piece of gear is the price. $80 for both the upper and lower packs is a steal to say the least. You'd pay at least that much for each piece individually at any other site.
3. U.S. M1917 SBR Gas Mask & Carry Bag
So this is a fairly new item at Man The Line and I'm very excited to try it out. Much like PTO reenacting, WWI is on its way up in the reenacting world. My obsession with the Great War began with an obsession with Boardwalk Empire, or more specifically with Jimmy Darmody. I loved the idea of a WWI vet coming home, putting on some amazingly slick suits and falling into the hay-day of organized crime. So I've thus begin a WWI impression, more specifically the 134th Infantry Regiment. I had no idea repro gas masks were even a thing, so when I got to play around with one of these bad boys a couple months ago I got very excited. Gas masks are THE most iconic and horrific prop of the war to end all wars. The price is heavy at $239.95, but I can tell you every last penny is worth it when the huns hit you with gas at your next event.
Good shopping to all and happy holidays!!!!
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- Paratrooper Leather Jump Gloves
Being primarily an airborne reenactor, these are the first item on my list. I've seen all manor of leather gloves being used by reenactors as "jump gloves" but I can honestly and without bias say these are the best reproductions I've seen so far. Many other reproductions look very much like originals, but the feel of these gloves sets them apart. Reproduction gloves tend to be stiff and uncomfortable, and never seem to fit. These are soft and comfy, with a natural color that doesn't stand out like some of those neon yellow jobs I've seen floating around at events in the past. Work them in with a little dirt sweat and water and they'll look great, feel great and form to the shape of your hands for the perfect protection for your fingers.
2. USMC 1941 "782" Upper and Lower Combat Field Equipment Pack
PTO is a growing faction of WWII reenacting. Thanks to films like "The Pacific" and "Heartbreak Ridge" many reenactors are being more intrigued by the idea of "stomping through the Solomons." With that new wave of reenacting comes a far greater number of USMC events and impressions. And no piece of gear is more important to a Marine impression than the "782" pack. I started my USMC impression a little over a year ago and have been piecing away at it since then. The 782 is tops on my list of "next to buy" and while I don't have it yet I have gotten my mitts on one of MTL's repros recently. Top notch as always, the most intriguing part of this piece of gear is the price. $80 for both the upper and lower packs is a steal to say the least. You'd pay at least that much for each piece individually at any other site.
3. U.S. M1917 SBR Gas Mask & Carry Bag
So this is a fairly new item at Man The Line and I'm very excited to try it out. Much like PTO reenacting, WWI is on its way up in the reenacting world. My obsession with the Great War began with an obsession with Boardwalk Empire, or more specifically with Jimmy Darmody. I loved the idea of a WWI vet coming home, putting on some amazingly slick suits and falling into the hay-day of organized crime. So I've thus begin a WWI impression, more specifically the 134th Infantry Regiment. I had no idea repro gas masks were even a thing, so when I got to play around with one of these bad boys a couple months ago I got very excited. Gas masks are THE most iconic and horrific prop of the war to end all wars. The price is heavy at $239.95, but I can tell you every last penny is worth it when the huns hit you with gas at your next event.
Good shopping to all and happy holidays!!!!
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So why then, when we get a chance to put on the uniforms and spend a weekend as close as we’ll ever get to stepping into George Luz’s long johns, do we sit on coolers covered in wool blankets sharing photos on Instagram and waiting till the sun goes down so we can sit around a fire and drink lukewarm bud light?
If I wanted to do that I’d befriend the hillbilly rednecks I went to high school with. I’m sure they’re in the middle of a cornfield right now tossing empty blue cans into a nearly out-of-control fire.
What’s the point? I mean honestly I’d like an answer here. If you’re not at least going to give authenticity the old college try, then why the fuck even be a part of the hobby?
And what happened to people being embarrassed of their authenticity mistakes? Everyone makes them and continues to make them. But 5 years ago at least people would acknowledge their mistakes and move forward. In 2016 it seems totally acceptable to use your smartphone just as you would in everyday life during events. No shame, no guilt, just Facebook.
I have a smartphone. I love my smartphone; the technology amazes me almost every day. But when I get to an event I shut it off. I understand if you need to have your phone on you incase of a family emergency, but if you can’t go 2 days without checking your Facebook or taking selfies then you need to have your fucking head examined.
So what happens now? Have smart phones become such a replacement for our personality that we can’t possibly be without them and therefore it’s completely OK to use them regularly at an event? I hope not.
Have we become so complacent with our hobby that we honest to goodness stop learning anything about the unit we portray and stop caring about how we portray them?
I’m seeing it happen all over the hobby. And the hobby is suffering because of it. Are your unit’s numbers down lately? I thought they might be……..
The stitch Nazis have died off and their return is nowhere in sight. We should all pray they come back before the hobby vanishes into the grey space somewhere between airsoft and cosplay.
The low temperature this coming Friday, the night of the event, is 4 F. If the forecast turns out to be true, it’ll be the coldest night I’ve ever spent outside. The absolute, no doubt about it, most imperative tool for braving that kind of temperature is a bail of straw. Peel it apart and line the bottom of your foxhole with a solid layer. Its insulating abilities are remarkable, and while it might’ve been a seldom had luxury in the real Bulge, it’s a must have for these events.
I like to think I’m a real hard ass when it comes to authenticity, but I’ll admit that even I break down slightly when it comes to these events. You won’t find any handwarmers in my jacket pockets, but you will find a few pairs of high quality, modern cold weather socks on my feet. There’s nothing more to say, you can’t get by without them. Cold hands can always be warmed in pockets, armpits or crotches. Cold feet are on their own and mine won’t survive without real socks.
No fires in the bulge, but a covered foxhole with an esbit stove passes muster in my eyes, and there’s nothing better than a tiny, golden red sliver of hope when your nuts are freezing to your leg. Use it to warm fingers, light cigarettes, heat your corn beef hash, anything that’ll keep you going.
4. A foxhole buddy
I’ll try not to sound weird here, but nothing warms you up like, snuggling up next to another shivering, miserable buddy. It’s just like cuddling, but without the reward at the end. I’ve spent nights in foxholes by myself and nights with another reenactor. I can tell you the nights spent in the latter situation were infanantely more comfortable.
So, my socks are packed, the straw is bought and paid for, my pockets are stuffed with fuel tablets. Friday night is the big night and I’m already shivering. Wish me luck! 
During the summer of 1998, I lost my grandfather. The Saturday before his funeral, I attended a local air show in the Twin Cities with some friends. There I stumbled across a reenacting group manning a display. I knew this was something I wanted to start doing. I had no idea how easy it was to get started and what they did. A couple of months later I attended my first tactical event and I was bitten by the bug and forever hooked.
The loss of my grandfather hit me pretty hard, but as I reflect on this eighteen years later, his passion to teach transferred on to me and I can’t even begin to account for the hundreds of people I've had the pleasure to speak to and educate them on the men and women who served in WWII. Not just that, but I’ve gained countless friendships with people who like him and I share a passion to learn, discuss and keep the history alive for the future.
What unit do you portray and why?
I am a member of Fox Co. 2/502nd PIR 101st Airborne Division out of Minnesota. I joined this group because I wanted to group that had the same beliefs I have about this hobby, to honor veterans and teach history to future generations.
How long was the trip to Europe on the books?
We started planning for this trip back in February for everything to happen in September.
Where did you travel in Europe?
This trip was a big one, two weeks and five countries to hit! The plan was simple at high level five days in Normandy, four days in Holland, four days in Bastogne, and a couple of stops in Aachen, Germany and Luxembourg. Planning the stops took some more planning, but what sites we did hit was a reenactors dream vacation.
We stayed in St. Mere Eglise during the entire Normandy stay, just blocks away from the church Private John Steele landed. In Holland We stayed in Nijmegen and our hotel was blocks away from the bridge, we could see it from our balcony. In Belgium we stayed blocks from McAuliffe Square.
What was your favorite location?
This is a hard question for me, I enjoyed all of the sites we visited, but if we had to pick I would say the Normandy Area. From where we stayed, you could walk in any direction and hit an import location. There is just so much going on in a concentrated area, it is easy to miss some sites on a five day stay.
Describe to me what it felt like to visit the U.S. cemetery at Omaha beach.
Its one thing to see pictures online, but when you step foot on the grounds it just blows your mind. It was a weird feeling of pride, sadness, and gratitude for the ten thousand plus GIs buried there. The grounds are kept in pristine condition with some fantastic memorials and museums. I’m amazed at the amount of people that visit this cemetery on a yearly basis, and the locals show great appreciate for those American men that paid the ultimate price for their freedoms.
Walking through the streets of Normandy, it's easy to imagine what it must've looked like at the time. Very little has changed. What was that like for someone so connected to the history of the area?
I thought it was awesome; you can still physically touch the same buildings that stood 70 plus years ago and see the bullet holes in the sides of houses and fences. It was a very surreal feeling to be walking down the same roads as those guys did back in June 1944. I applaud the French for not trying tear down history and upgrade some of these towns. Every road, turn, town square, or field had something going on it was just so much in such a concentrated area it just blows your mind.
It's every reenactors dream to visit the battlefields we spend so much time studying. What was it like to finally be there after over a decade of reenacting?
This was a bucket list trip for me. From a very young age I always wanted to go to Normandy and walk the beaches. I went to Europe in high school but we only hit London and Paris, which bummed me out that we were so close and didn't stop. So to finally make it was literally a dream come true to not just hit Normandy, but also Holland and Belgium. One thing that added some great perspective is to see how the terrain really was, the coasts, hedgerow country and really understand how daunting of a task these guys had when trying take back these lands.
Did you use a tour program or go on your own?
We did a mix of a couple days with paid tour guides and friends in Normandy and Holland. But most of it was a plan put together by us and what we wanted to see. We drove ourselves around which gave us the ability to be fluid and change due to timing or weather.
Did you find yourself getting emotional as you walked through all the battlefields where so many people gave their lives?
At times I did catch myself becoming emotional, at the cemeteries and beaches mostly. To know that you’re standing at the spot where thousands died trying to run up those vast open spaces of beach. When we hit Omaha beach the second day, It was warmer and nice out and the locals were enjoying the beach. All you can see are kids playing and families laughing, and I had this internal struggle with “don’t they know where they are, and what happened here!!!.” I was quickly reminded by one of the guys I traveled with that many gave their lives so they could have the freedom enjoy life. That helped put me at an ease of mind around that.
What did you miss that you'd like go back and see someday?
I’d go back in a heartbeat. The group I went with are already taking of a possible 2019 trip for the 75th anniversary of D-day and then head into Germany. I found myself not ever getting bored or tired of seeing all the sites. I would see some of the same spots for a 2nd time.
For your money, what country had the best food and beer?
If I had to rank them from best to good, for the beer category it would be Belgium, Holland, and France. In regards to food it would be Holland, Belgium, and France. 
I very much liked the first half of the movie. The love story is great and I felt really connected to Doss’ struggle. He was played so kind and soft spoken you couldn’t help but want him to win.
The first real cringe moment was his introduction to basic training. His platoon mates were each a walking cliché of WWII stereotypes. The good-looking “Hollywood,” the short little quedo, the asshole who for some reason always becomes the B.A.R. gunner.
Nothing that I didn’t expect though, so I put the cheesiness out of my mind and focused on the brilliance of Vince Vaughn as the grizzled NCO. His christening of the Pollack as “chief” was one of the funnier moments of any WWII movie I’ve ever seen.
I was anxious to get to the combat scenes. I’m not a movie critic in the faintest sense, but I do love reviewing authenticity and everything was so straightforward in the training scenes there wasn’t much to critique.
Yet when they actually jumped from stateside to overseas it left me confused. I realized there had been no timeline the entire movie, which left me with tons of questions. We jumped from an ambiguous time somewhere after Pearl Harbor to May 1945, three months before the war’s end. What happened in-between? Did he volunteer toward the end of the war or did his unit just spend 3 years getting ready to invade Okinawa? Were the C.O. and Vaughn veterans who had returned from overseas to train a new unit or was this their first action as well?
I had just barely recovered from this whirlwind when the first combat scene finally debuted, and punched me square in the jaw.
I saw the movie by myself, something I generally enjoying doing. But when I watched them try and take Hacksaw for the first time I wished someone I knew had been sitting next to me. It was horrific on a level I’d never seen before. I good friend of mine told me before I went to see it that it made ‘Private Ryan’ look like a kids movie. He was right. It was almost too much, visually. I couldn’t see what was happening in the hurricane of limbs and bayonets and mortar explosions. It really left me wondering if the battle had really been that bad. If there was that much hand to hand combat. I still don’t know, information on the actual battle has been hard to come by.
It was all very shocking and overwhelming. The only thing that pulled me out of the intensity was the asshole B.A.R. gunner picking up half a dead body and using it as his Captain America shield while he charged a group of japs. Why, Mel Gibson, why??
I shook my head at that, tried to forget about it and waded through the rest of the film. All in all I loved it. Minor authenticity mistakes here and there, (helmet liners, bayonet lugs and postwar sights) but nothing too egregious and nothing that took away from the power of the story.
That’s what really made this film worth watching. The pure power of Desmond Doss’ story. Is it the best war film since “Saving Private Ryan?”
No.
But a worthy effort by all involved and a wholly amazing story that needed to be told. 
I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to fight in WWII. The pain and horror can only be understood by those who experienced it firsthand. But take all that suffering and death and throw sub zero temperatures, a foot of snow and blizzard condition winds on top of it and the scenario becomes unthinkably horrific. I’ve spent hours, days maybe, thinking about how any human being could endure those conditions. I still don’t know how anyone did it.
(Just for the record, I know conditions on the Eastern front were even worse, but I have little to know experience researching or reenacting it).
That’s what makes cold weather events so enticing to me. Spending 24 hours “living it” always leaves me in awe of how the real guys could’ve survived weeks in those conditions.
These events also allow me to “pull out all the stops” so to speak. Improvising with how to carry everything you need has always been one of my favorite parts of the hobby and it’s never more important than during a winter event.
This is made even more exciting by how ill prepared the allies were during this time. So often you see infantrymen carrying almost no gear, everything thrown in pockets or stuff down the front of a field jacket.
You also have to figure out how to carry your sleeping gear. I’d like to eventually work up to going without that but have never had the balls to venture out for a night without multiple wool blankets or a period bag carried in a hobo roll.
My unit does an overnight tactical in central Minnesota every December. We sleep in foxholes smack dab in the middle of a large stand of planted evergreens. I couldn’t imagine an area that looks more like Belgium if I tried.
The feeling I get when I’m there is amazing. It’s frightening actually, when you feel the cold setting in. You know that at least for the next 24 hours, there’s no way to get warm. No heaters, no campfires, no Gortex boots. “Deep cold” as I call it, cold that shakes you to your bones, is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced.
The night after the event when I’m back home in my toasty warm bed I remember what that felt like and shudder. Then I realize for the real guys in the winter of 44-45, there was no warm bed to be had. They would still be out there for weeks, maybe months. And there’d be people trying to kill them. It’s at this very moment every year that my appreciation and amazement at what those men went through is at its highest level. And that makes it worth it.
Check out this video to take a look at the event we do every December!
Our first place winner was submitted by Mitchell Babarovich. It was our hands down winner, with only a few other photos being considered. As always, we looked for original quality pictures and this one could not seem more real. It looks like the candid shots you often see of GIs waiting around before an attack or gathered in the rear shooting the shit. 
The only thing that sets this photo apart from our winner was the fact that I couldn't see any facial expressions on the GIs pictured (which always really adds to the photo). The original quality is second to none and the backdrop is absolutely perfect. Which makes sense as the photo was snapped during the last fews days of the 2nd Armored in Europe trip "The Pursuit." One of the greatest events I've ever heard of, the envy I feel for everyone in this photo cannot be measured. The photo was taken outside the German held airfield in Cambrai-Niergnes. The photo was taken by Rick van Nooij with a period camera. Featured in the photo (left to right) are Scott Hatch, Lew Ladwig, William Quayle (behind rifle) and Dave Dantzler. The 2nd AD boys are waiting for a mortar barrage to get started before making their advance. Like I said, the envy can't be measured. 
This photo was brought to us by Alexander Bartoli. It features troops of the 2nd SS Das Reich Reconnaissance. Sturmmann Baumann is on the left, Schutze Graeber is on the right (Alexander Bartoli and Chris Williams in real life). The scenario for the photo is the two soldaten are taking a moment to chat 
Submitted by Wilhelm Gaulke, our 2nd place winner certainly doesn't look like an original photograph, but we couldn't overlook the quality and "epic-ness" of the shot (pardon the phrase). 
