4th’s True Fireworks: Musket Men

Don Dooley didn’t watch any fireworks this weekend. He didn’t drink any beer. He didn’t go anywhere near Huntington Beach.

The Revolutionary War buff spent the evening of the Fourth the only way he’d want to--crouched in a canvas tent wearing the heavy uniform of an 18th century British soldier, cleaning his musket.

Dooley and the dozen or so other volunteers who camped out at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda were there to reenact battles Saturday and Sunday for whoever chose not to go to the beach.

But they were also there to immerse themselves in a history too often overlooked.

“Here in Southern California, where we’re removed from [the battlefields of the Revolution], people really forget what the Fourth of July is about,” said Dooley, who, when not portraying a member of the British army’s 23rd Regiment, is a city planner in Yorba Linda.

Dooley recognizes that some people look askance at grown men dressing up as Revolution-era soldiers and schooling themselves in military maneuvers that went out of style more than a century ago.

“But it’s one of those personal things you decide to do because you love history, you love this period, and you don’t want those sacrifices to be forgotten.”

For the volunteers, the weekend was the annual culmination of meetings, drills, exchange of American Revolution trivia and--yes, they acknowledged gleefully--practice with muskets.

All are members of the national, nonprofit Brigade of the American Revolution. The organization has chapters across the country that recreate Revolutionary War battles and flesh out the lives of the men who fought them. Founded in 1963, it is one of perhaps a dozen such organizations in the U. S.

Before a Sunday audience of several hundred people who came to the Nixon Library for any number of reasons--not least of which were the free slices of apple pie handed out to visitors--the men recreated the April 19, 1775, Battle of Lexington, which triggered the Revolution.

With only a handful of soldiers for the reenactment, the battle wasn’t exactly true to life. But what they lacked in numbers, the soldiers made up in spirit.

“I sprained my ankle chasing a Redcoat,” explained Siegfried Heep earnestly, sitting on a rough bench in front of a tent, his historically correct ponytail drawn up below his equally correct cap.

In real life, Heep, 38, is a video engineer who lives in Sherman Oaks. But Sunday, “I am not here, I am there, 200 years ago--220 years ago, to be exact,” he said.

“It creates perspective on the modern, hectic life,” Heep said. “It gives us a chance to realize that throughout history things haven’t been just the way they are today. People were living lives very differently back then and still prospering, and still being very much alive.”

When it’s not the Fourth of July, the volunteers busy themselves giving demonstrations and talks to historical societies, school groups and whoever else is interested in living history. They pay for their uniforms and weapons themselves, spending an average of $2,500 on items including specially cast belt buckles and cotton breeches.

Perhaps once a year they travel to the East Coast to participate with other groups in full-scale battle reenactments. Many bring their wives and children, some of whom were at the Library on Sunday, dressed as camp followers.

“We want people to handle the muskets, to see the equipment and hold it, so they can get the smell of the gunpowder and the camps and really get the experience of the 18th century,” Dooley said. “That’s something you can’t do with history books.”

Lee Lether, 4, seemed to be getting the point.

“The Redcoats were bad,” Lether said, perched in his grandfather’s arms, waiting for the Battle of Lexington to begin. “But who are those guys in the white coats?”

His grandfather, also named Lee Lether, hugged the boy tighter and chuckled.

“We did the traditional fireworks thing last night, but we just wanted to continue the holiday, and this is kind of special,” Lether said.

“At his age he needs to have a visual expression of what we’re celebrating. It’s our culture. It’s who we are. This is a great way to start him off with a respect for it.”