The spectators you meet at events...

[willysmb44]

NOTE: this list was just for humour. I am only talking about the frustrating people you sometimes encounter at events.

 

For some time now, I have been mentally compiling a list of the personality types you encounter in the public at display events. This list may sound like I hate going to these events, but that’s not the case. But with any pastime, there are some annoying aspects. The written list was born at Armed Forces Day at Fort Lewis last year. A buddy of mine and I were sitting in his WW2 Jeep eating lunch. This older guy (between WW2 and Vietnam vet ages) came by and started the most boring “in the service” stories I’ve ever heard and hung there for quite some time. We just nodded a lot and ate away. After he mercifully left, we started running through all the types of folks you see at these kinds of events. Aside from the really "in your face" agressive types, we always keep quiet or just let them go on and on but anyone in the hobby for any time should recognize these types of people. Naturally, the really great and nice folks don't make this list.

So, here it is:

• The postwar vet who never went anywhere or did anything and wants SOMEONE to hear his barracks floor buffer stories.
  
• The ROTC cadet who has to show off his skills because his friends are sick of watching demonstrations of low crawling or how to disassemble an M-16.
  
• The Lawyer. This person knows next to nothing about the law excepy that the guns you're showing HAVE to be illegal to own, right? This person is a firm believer in all the amendments of the constitution. Except for the second, of course.
  
• The baby-boomer who wants to know everything about their long-departed father but can’t recall anything about his service (and always says “No” to every question asked to try to narrow it down, leaving you to wonder if Dad maybe served with the Germans).
  
• The tag-along. In days past, these kids would have marched behind units going off to war as if they were one of them. Now, their parents have bought little Johnny a airsoft gun, some postwar web gear and maybe a Chinese knockoff M-42 jacket. In his mind, he’s one of you and wants to be included in your group. The fact that he’s nine years old apparently makes that “cute” to his parents who have no issues with dumping him off at your display are for the duration of their visit to the show. While they can someday become good re-enactors, they don’t get that people see them and will associate them (and the standards of their “impression”) with your group. In some cases, his family has your group’s yearly schedule down and you see them more often than you see your own family members.
  
• The thankful civilian. Usually a housewife and possibly the spouse of someone in the military, they’re locked into not repeating the sins of the Vietnam generation, and will gush gratitude to anyone in uniform just in case. While not annoying and their hearts are in the right place, they can be embarrassing to those who either never served or don’t have the heart to explain that their M-42 jump suit is NOT being used in Iraq today.
  
• The video game kid. They're between 8 and 16 (when if they have real game, they would have discovered girls), and will proceed to tell you all the false info they learned off their videogames and that you can't possibly be right about a Tommy gun magazine only having either 20 or 30 round magazines because “Call to Bulge 5” has an unlimited bullet supply in one.
  
• The “I didn’t use that” WW2 vet. This elder statesman has about as much tact as he has recollection of the past. He can’t recall much, but by God, what you have in your display is NEVER what he carried in the war. And if you pull out what he said he carried, he’ll say in fact, he carried something else more often anyway.
  
• The Toucher. This OCD-riddled soul must take part in laying of the hands on each individual thing your brought to the display. “Do not touch” sign? What sign? They sometimes will even move the ‘keep you meathooks off’ sign to pick up that original SSF knife as if it were his pocket knife back home.
  
• The New-Age hippie. This granola-munching flower child is all about tolerance and diversity. That is, UNTIL they see anything military. Then the most rude and mean things will come out of them. Why they came to a show devoted to a topic they hate will always be a mystery. Perhaps they smoked a bit too much Panama Red before they showed up and made a wrong turn on their way to protest at the local recruiter.
  
• The “you got robbed” guy. Yes, he came to the show to see all this stuff so he must know it’s rare, but he’ll have a stroke when you answer his questions on values. When you explain that that original M-2 helmet is worth more than some new cars, he’ll look at you like you’re insane, then sound off about how nuts you must have been to pay for it at all or that he can buy them all day at the local surplus store.
  
• “The camper.” He’s the guy (they’re always guys) with questionable intelligence, social skills and hygiene, who will stand at your display ALL DAY and try to muscle into every conversation you have with the pubic, often with ramblings that don’t fit the discussion. Often you can totally ignore The Camper’s existence and they’ll just hang there all day anyway. They’re probably biding time between Star Trek conventions.
  
• The “$50 Jeep new in the crate” guy. If you have no idea what this means, ask a military Jeep owner. They’ll explain.
  
• The Information Gatekeeper. This person trolls the internet looking for obscure info all the time. They never see the insides of any legitimate research archives, though. Their primary hobby is proclaiming how they’re the ONLY person on earth who knows obscure info such as the size bullet that goes in a M-1 rifle, how many machine guns a P-51 carried, Patton’s middle name and such impossible-to-find info as this. Most of the time, they don’t even collect anything at all, unless you count annoyed people.
  
• The Gang Banger. He knows nothing of history, but he loves picking up guns, holding them sideways for his “homies” to see, flashing gang signs for their cell phones, talking about how sweet it’d be to “pop a cap” in the backside of one of their imagined enemies. In reality, he’s probably about as into a gang as you are.
  
• The Swap Meet guy. He thinks EVERYTHING is for sale, and won’t accept no for an answer. If you get tired and say something like “yes, I’ll take a million bucks for that,” he’ll be offended and in his eyes, YOU are the jerk.
  
• The Movie buff. He doesn’t know much about history, but he can quote any movie line ever. He’ll camp out at your display wanting to pick apart every war movie ever made. While not annoying in small doses (who doesn’t do this from time to time?), this person has clearly worn his welcome out when he starts to debate how accurate the shields in “Gladiator” really were.
  
• The Collector. This person love nothing more than coming to displays just to tell you how much better all his stuff is. Mind you, nobody’s actually SEEN his Sherman tank, B-17 fuselage or the remains of Hitler’s skull (or even photos of same), but he’ll spend a lot of time telling you why his collection is far more impressive than your “little gathering” of stuff.
  
• The vague kid. It’s not done intentionally, but this child is always alone, asking if you have, “You know, that thing that shoots? You know, like the thing I saw in that movie with my friend Billy?” You’re left standing there wondering if the kid is really speaking English or not and what they must be teaching children in school because surely you could describe something better than that when you were a kid.
  
• Captain Obvious. This is the person who must feel like they’re imparting knowledge to someone. The problem is, what they impart is clear to anyone over the age of two. They make the remarks about how the wool uniform must be hot, that Tommy gun must be heavy or that you can’t just buy a WW2 Jeep at a dealership anymore. They’re never alone, and you really must feel pity for their wives or parents.
  
• The 2nd Amendment custodian. This person doesn’t really care about history, only the rights of gun owners. That in itself isn’t bad, you generally don’t want to hear a constitutionally questionable lecture on what the founding fathers had in mind and what “them people in DC” are trying to do to get your guns. When they start talking about the UN getting ready to invade the US and round all us “God fearing gun owners” up, you are left praying someone will come up and ask if that MK II grenade is real.
  
• The indulgent parent. While aware that you don’t want people sitting in your jeep or fiddling with your M1919, you should make an exception for their kid. They never say no to this little claw machine, so why should you? Often, they’ll just indulge little Johnny then saunter away while you tell them you don’t want their little ankle biter trying to start your jeep or shoot up people with your rifles. You have to wonder how many re-enactors being restrained from committing infanticide can be seen in the backgrounds of these people’s photos.
  
• The A-Team fan. This person will look over your group, then launch into a “wouldn’t it be cool if” scenario involving your group being dropped into Pakistan to capture Bin Laden of something equally insane. The best thing to do is to suggest a neat novel called “Grey Eagles” by Duane Unkefer (I’m not kidding, it’s actually a pretty good book).
  
• The air soft kid. Never mind that you have an original M1 bazooka and other items that you can’t find in most museums. This kid (and they’re ALWAYS kids) will walk hundreds of yards away directly toward your weapons and either ask if any are air soft (or God forbid you actually have one, what the “FPS is” on it because in their world, everything must be internally modified to be acceptable). If you have none, they’ll look detached for a moment then wander away, leaving you to wonder if they realize that there is such a thing as REAL firearms that shoot bullets.
  
• The Nomenclature troll. This person must live to go through technical manuals. They’ll ask the most obscure questions, such as how many different plants made mainsprings for 1911A1s (and where they all were) or what was the exact number of parts in the rear differential of a Willys MB Jeep made in 1943. Never mind they have never owned any of these things, but they will look down upon anyone who doesn’t have the exact same trivial knowledge in their brains. For fun, turn it around and ask if they know how to even load a 1911 or how to start a WW2 Jeep. They probably won’t know.
  
• The conspiracy theorist. The only thing lacking is a trench coat and sunglasses. FDR caused Pearl Harbor. Patton was assassinated to keep the peace with the Russians. The Iwo Jima flag photo was staged. Glenn Miller was abducted by aliens. There’s no end to the “global conspiracy” that goes back even that far. When they get going on how the Holocaust was a fraud set up by the US and the Russians, you should be within your legal right to fix bayonets.
  

Any others that I’ve missed? :think:

[Sgt_Rock_EasyCo]

I'm offended.

 

I got my Expert Buffer Badge while on active duty. It was the hardest thing to earn. A buffer can really get away from you and they're more dangerous than a 1919a2f3 (a) variant. After buffing those floors a guy can't help being stinky, and I only hung out all day because I was trying to hit on the greatful mom's. No luck, she went home with the hippie. I keyed his car on the way and went home and played some "battle ground II" with extreme graphics in cheat mode.

 

Rock

[shrapneldude]

WOW! Nail on the head right there! I don't reenact, but have met ALL of those types of people at military shows / flea markets / gun shows. Might add, though they're in a category all their own, the obviously full of crap guys who will pick something up off the table and proceed to tell you some horrendous BS story..."That's a p38 can opener there. I know that real well. Back in the 'Nam, I used one of these to escape a POW camp by cutting through a bamboo tiger cage and slitting a guard's throat. 40 of us escaped that night, but it's still classified. How much is it? $2? Would you take fifty cents?"

 

Anyhow, nicely done list there.

[HoovieDude]

Ditto to Dans reply!

 

Heard it today on the radio, that things are often the funniest when they are true. And these descriptions fit me thinks

 

 

Of course, the old P38 events were difficult times I am sure. But none of them compare to mine. No Sh*t, there I was, surrounded by a tank battalion of the Republican Guard, and all I had left was my Leatherman, with can opener blade......

[THAT GUY]

Well, this has nothing on the other guys posts, but at a public battle in Texas last year, some kind was either dropped off by dad or dad was in another german reenactment group and came with us on the night mission. The kid had to be at least 10 with semi- long hair, sneakers, t-shirt under the wools, and a helmet way too big. And is weapon may have been airsoft. Don't know where he went during the night mission, did not want him around as it got dangerous in the dark.

 

But there was this younger kid that was an exception who saluted me the Nazee as we did our squad march down the display road.

 

Sam

[Mr_Flibble]

The Iwo Jima flag photo was staged.

 

[Jeeper704]

You forgot the "silent bystander"; sometimes a young kid, sometimes an older man.

He doesn't ask any questions, he just eyeballs you and what you have on display ...... for quite a loooooooooong time.

It makes you wonder if either his batteries are dead or he's waiting for a moment you look away to grab something.

 

Erwin

[hawkdriver]

My friend, you should be forced to man a helicopter static display! You forgot the "Can little Johnny wear your helmet so I can take a picture" people. When I first started doing static display, I would let this happen and I thought I was doing a good thing. But then it happened, I said yes one day and as soon as Johhny took the helmet off, the next family asked if they could do the same. I looked at the kid and he looked like some wild child from Borneo. He was the kind of kid that you wouldn't touch his head with a gloved hand, let alone your helmet. Lets just say that the entire flight home, I swear I could feel hair crickets crawling around my head. Another crew chief that did let kids wear his helmet ended up with a big sore, which we know as MRSA, on the back of his neck. From that point forward, I would politely decline. When I got a parent one day that got beligerant about it, I told him that If I would take my underwear off and he would put them on, then I would let his kid wear my helmet, you know, same difference. He walked away and I learned to bag my helmet and hide it and my ALSE vest in the hell hole.

We also have the limit testor. These are the kids that get inside and take the cyclic and begin bagning it against all the stops. Then walks across the center radio console breaking radio knobs in a perfect patter of his little hoof as he traipsies across to see if the other cyclic will make the same banging sound when abused.

There is the guy that flew Blackhawks in Vietnam, when asked what rank he was, he was a buck private, but by God, he flew Blackhawks in Vietnam, it was a test they were doing at the time. When you explain the first production hawk was made in 78, he reminds you that he doesn't want to be trifled with facts.

Ever get the, my little Johhny is anemic/hypoglycemic/whateveritis and needs to eat, can he have some of what you are eating? Even though you are eating a burger from the stand 50 feet away, he needs to have yours? God forbid you crack out a MRE, then a flock of these people show up.

The smoker from hell. These people come up to an aircraft that is sitting in dead grass and 300 gallons of flammable jet fuel and light a cigarette for themselve and their entire family and when done, will fling the cigarette carelessly on the ground. You spend as much time crushing out cigarettes as you do answering questions. When you tell them they need to step back, they get offended. Actually watched a guy crush his cigarette out on the stabilator of my aircraft one day!

 

Needless to say, when I am forced to static displays these days, I am the grumpy sweetheart. Feel free to use any of these

[kjones5452]

There's also the guy thats more than happy to say where he was and what he did,

until you tell him to hold on a minute and you go in the tent and come out with an

WW2 Order of Battle to pinpoint everything and they suddendly have to leave or

all that information is "at the house"

[teufelhunde.ret]

... hilarious thread guys! Thanks for the levity today!

[mpguy80/08]

Hey Hawk!!! Just for the fun of it you could find a way to put the static in static display and forget to ground the aircraft... anyone that touches it gets zapped... LOL Just kidding, but even we who do static gear displays run into all of your examples. They want to try on your helmets/headgear/gloves, want you to open your rations so they can try some, they finger f... er.... play with your weapons as if they are toys and without asking despite the PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH signs, and yes... those guys who stand there for a loooooooooooong time without saying a word ARE waiting for you to turn away for a second so they can abscond with some small item in your display. A couple of examples:

 

At the 82nd Airborne Association Convention in 2009, one of our guys had set up his bunk display with all of his period minutia... papers, magazines and such... within five minutes, a flood of kids came through. Before one Vet got to see the display, his cricket disappeared. He was watching the display, and with all the kids fingering everything, he didn't even see it go. At the same display, myself and another of our guys had made up a batch of D Rations using the period recipie... We each broke two bars each into pieces for people to try if they like. It was fun to watch the wives and kids of the WWII vets chow down while the Vet stood knowingly in the background, refusing to touch said bar with a 20 ft pole as I explained the history of the D Bar, the request to Hershey from the Quartermaster Corps, and the criteria for how the bar should taste. Sure, they are edible, but when that may have been all you had to eat for a few days, they became old really quick, and they were never meant to be a CANDY bar. They were emergency rations!

 

I recently did the Troop Aid event in Middletown Ohio in mid May. It was late afternoon, getting on towards evening and the bands were playing so things kind of slacked off. Two kids came up on a bike. One stayed on the bike, and the other got off, coming up to the display. Immediately he reached for the weapons, specifically my M1911, "Aw man I gotta have this!!!" I reached over and put my hand on the weapon so he couldn't pick it up and asked that he please not touch the weapons or items in the display. This kid was maybe ten, eleven years old tops, he looks at me and says, "thats pretty rude. you should let people pick up the guns." I explained to him that a) he was a child and shouldn't be handling weapons anyway, and how would he feel if I came to his house and started playing his X Box without asking. Then, the two decided to play divide and conquer, hitting opposite ends of the display, with the first kid still making remarks about getting his hands on my .45, and how if he had one he'd be "busting caps in his enemies behind." I flat out asked them to leave, which is something I never do. I strive to never be rude to anyone viewing my displays, no matter how trying they could be, but these two little thug gangstas really tore it with me real quick. I mean really, what enemies could a ten year old have that he would want to shoot them?

 

Yeah, even at the Dayton Ohio Patriot Freedom days last Saturday, I ran into the type that just couldn't keep their hands off the weapons. Kids mostly, in the eight to fifteen year old range, and almost all of them made remarks about wanting to get their hands on a gun. There were other displays that let people handle the weapons because they had enough people there to man their whole display and watch things. My display, while a part of a group of displays, was separate, and I only had myself to watch over everything. By the grace of God, I didn't lose anything.

 

Its a trying experience to conduct these displays, and all the years I spent in the MP Corps dealing with the public while always presenting a smiling face while keeping complete control of a situation helps in these situations I suppose. I don't intend to stop doing these displays anytime soon.

 

I like the people who sit back and listen to you discuss the war with a veteran who was there, and then come up and ask you, I never knew that... why don't they teach that stuff in school? How do you answer that without coming off as a raging (insert political ideology here: Conservative, liberal, democrat, republican)?

 

Wayne

[gwb123]

Geez, after reading this I feel like I've just completed a three day show weekend.

 

I think we had an earlier thread similar to this one on people you meet at militaria shows.

 

If I am repeating here forgive me, but:

 

The "wannabee/gonnabee": Usually an older teenager who has been a lurker at various shows or reenactments. He's read all kind of history books about the Airborne, LRRPs sneaking around the jungle, the Marines in the Pacific, Snipers and Green Berets setting off claymores because the bad guys are coming through the wires. For all of this knowledge he weighs 110 lbs soaking wet and is totally uncoordinated. Then he walks into a show one day and announces that he has signed up with the recruiter and will be shipping off for boot camp in three months. Of course, he attends every show and reenactment for the next three months to tell people the same thing. Even though he does not have the body mass to properly weigh down a parachute he has volunteered for Airborne school on completion of Basic. Unfortunately the only MOS that was available was Army Cook. Every one wishes his luck with his new career and privately breathes a sigh of relief that he will be gone at least for a few months. Six weeks after his reporting date he is back at the shows explaining that things just did not work out with Army. OK, fair enough, it's not for everyone. But then as the vets are telling war stories he chimes in with how rough mess hall duty was, how tough it was to break in a new pair of boots or how bad it was to eat cold rations in the middle of a training exercise. These tales of valor of course leave his listeners speechless...

 

And yes, this really happened. Out of tough love and kindness, I took him aside one day and explained that his boot camp stories were never going to impress anybody, that he could buy all the militaria in the world but that would not make him a soldier or Marine, and that he should seriously consider spending his available time and money on his other hobby... rock music. He never spoke to me again, but the last I heard he was letting his hair grow and had bought an electric guitar.

[PFCMcP]

Lee is right; I've met many of the same folks at the very same Fort Lewis events over the years. One of those characters was so bizarre that we simply named the he/she/it (wasn't sure what it was) the "Creature." Of course that was when the SCA did their thing at the event. As a result of all the "grabby hands" at Lewis, my group has since erected a 550-cord "perimeter" with wooden stakes around our gear layout. We position this perimeter about two feet beyond our display and all around. Sufficed to say, this has effectively ended our issues with the OCD-types. Of course, we did get a set of twins this year who leaned awfully close over the "wire" and who would have probably fallen over have I not cautioned them to lean back.

 

John

[hbtcoveralls]

The one that I see now is the "Band of Brothers" guy who has the entire thing memorized and thinks Dick Winters is a saint and that the 506th licked the Germans single handedly. They really don't know why we aren't in Airborne Uniforms since only airborne fought in the ETO.

And then there is the type I've only encountered while re-enacting in Europe. Really quite hot girls who are literally giving you their phone numbers and making it clear in every way that they are ready to do their part for the war effort. I always try and hand them off to the single guys, but I've not encountered that in the USA.

Tom Bowers.

[willysmb44]

Had a guy come up to me years ago, clearly a "gang banger wanna be" type and walked up to a M1911 on my table (owned by a pal of mine that John [PFCMcP]knows as he was there too, I think) and said, "Waht would you do if I grabbed this and ran off with it?" I calmly looked him in the eye, patted my M-3 trench knife on my ankle and said, "I would run you down with my buddies and I'd beat you to death with it." then quickly made up a story on one of our guy ebing a Ranger in the "Blackhawk Down" mission and had done that very thing in the past. The guy gulped, backed up and walked away. An older guy right behind him walked up and said he was a guard at a boy's prison and said he deal with juvenile offenders all the time. He said that was exactly what I needed to say as the kid was indeed casing the area in his opinion...

You forgot the "Can little Johnny wear your helmet so I can take a picture" people.

Oh God, you're right, good call, I'd frogotten that one! How about the ones that don't even have a camera and expect not only to borrow your stuff but have you take the photo of them as well? Not that big a deal now with digital, but it used to happen to me all the time when I shot film. After a couple of these, I'd just pretened that I took that shot, knowing I'd never likely see them again anyway...

Ever get the, my little Johhny is anemic/hypoglycemic/whateveritis and needs to eat, can he have some of what you are eating? Even though you are eating a burger from the stand 50 feet away, he needs to have yours?

Thankfully I have yet to encounter this one, but there's an air show in two weeks, maybe then... :pinch:

One of those characters was so bizarre that we simply named the he/she/it (wasn't sure what it was) the "Creature." Of course that was when the SCA did their thing at the event.

Gents, he ain't kidding. Haven't seen this.... person in a couple of years there, but the jury is still out on what gender this individual was!

As a result of all the "grabby hands" at Lewis, my group has since erected a 550-cord "perimeter" with wooden stakes around our gear layout. We position this perimeter about two feet beyond our display and all around.

I agree, it's one of the smartest things I've seen at any display area and it appears to work very well. Wish I'd thought of it! :thumbsup:

[hbtcoveralls]

I almost forgot, we also had a category call the PMBFH, or "psycho model builder from hell" who when displaying near historic aricraft (although I've gotten them next to vehicles as well) will attempt to tell you all the inaccuracies on said aircraft (or vehicle) because the kits he's built are correct. I found that its useless to argue that the Aircraft (or vehicle) isn't a kit but is in fact the actual item, since apparently Hasegawa makes a more authentic B-25 than North American.

Tom Bowers

[LtRGFRANK]

I don't know where they buy it but I've seen display at gunshows that are covered with a very fine mesh. Can see through it very good but no way can you pick anything up.

[THAT GUY]

The one that I see now is the "Band of Brothers" guy who has the entire thing memorized and thinks Dick Winters is a saint and that the 506th licked the Germans single handedly. They really don't know why we aren't in Airborne Uniforms since only airborne fought in the ETO.

And then there is the type I've only encountered while re-enacting in Europe. Really quite hot girls who are literally giving you their phone numbers and making it clear in every way that they are ready to do their part for the war effort. I always try and hand them off to the single guys, but I've not encountered that in the USA.

Tom Bowers.

 

Really??? :think: They still think its 1944?

[hbtcoveralls]

Really??? :think: They still think its 1944?

Let's just say that re-enacting is somewhat cooler and more "mainstream" in Europe than here, and I just wonder if Grandma was telling stories about the GIs the first time around.

Tom bowers

[kjones5452]

I don't know where they buy it but I've seen display at gunshows that are covered with a very fine mesh. Can see through it very good but no way can you pick anything up.

I've often thought it might be what is used to repair window screens or screen doors.

[THAT GUY]

Let's just say that re-enacting is somewhat cooler and more "mainstream" in Europe than here, and I just wonder if Grandma was telling stories about the GIs the first time around.

Tom bowers

 

That's weird. And I bet she was...

[hbtcoveralls]

That's weird. And I bet she was...

If it was just once I'd agree, but I've seen them in France, England, Belgium and now the Czech Republic. Again, I'm happily married and wouldn't do anything to change that, but I just couldn't believe that females, espcially hot ones, would find re-enactors interesting. Never seen that in the good old USA. Most of the other types that Lee mentioned in his entirely hilarious post are present in the ETO as well, however.

Tom Bowers

[Darktrooper]

The spectators who tell you that your stuff is fake (not repro, just fake like plastic fruit fake). This happened at a Rev. War Event, we were cooking a pig over a fire pit, and a woman told my mother that our plastic pig is melting.

[shocktrooper15]

Dont forget the BDU Badboys: The ones that dress up in BDU's and expect everyone to talk to them while they walk around the show purely looking for attention!

[shrapneldude]

Dont forget the BDU Badboys: The ones that dress up in BDU's and expect everyone to talk to them while they walk around the show purely looking for attention!

 

I know one of those! Hits every gun and militaria show, and is ALWAYS in some form of BDU trousers / boots / boonie combination, and has never served a day in his life. We call him GI Joe.