Logistics planner enjoys living in past

Published May 15, 2006
By Staff Sgt. Aaron Cram
U.S. Strategic Command Public Affairs

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. (AFPN) -- With many people using the latest and greatest gadgets today it seems odd that someone would willingly drink water from a rusted canteen from the Civil War.

“Canteens were all made out of tin,” said. Lt. Col. William Jordan, U.S. Strategic Command plans, mobility and engineering division chief. “It's nothing to pour water out and it's orange from rust. You have to try to clear it out.”

For about 23 years, the self-proclaimed history buff has relived numerous historical events from the Revolutionary War to World War II.

“I got started in 1983 from a college professor,” the 42-year-old colonel said. “That really piqued my interest.”

The colonel said there are three different kinds of events -- reenactments, living history and total immersion.

“Reenactments are basically shows,” he said. “You're trying to demonstrate some of the tactics, techniques and procedures they utilized in a particular time frame. So if you're out reenacting a Civil War battle, you're showing them the tactics utilized by the United States during the 19th century.

In living history, "you're actually there giving people some idea of what it would be like to be in that specific era," Colonel Jordan said. "You're talking to them either in first person or third person and you're actually conveying to them a little bit more information about the time period you're portraying.”

Colonel Jordan said total immersion events usually are not for the public.

“It's for the living historians or reenactors,” he said. “You're totally immersed into that time period you're portraying. Your modern discussions are out the window. You don't talk about the cell phones or sports; you talk about stuff that would be relevant to the time period. Your head is more into the game and you realize what it would have been like.”

Being a living historian can be an every-weekend thing, the colonel said, but because of work and family he tries to limit it to once a month.

“There are aspects of the Civil War and the War of 1812 my family is getting involved in,” he said. “If there’s an event where we can all go, I try to pick that one.”

One event he recently participated in was one he had wanted to do for a long time. The colonel attended training to be a member of the World War II airborne demonstration team. For one week, he attended parachute training at Frederick Army Airfield, a former World War II bomber training base in Frederick, Okla.

Colonel Jordan and his classmates went through several days of ground training before making five static-line jumps from a vintage C-47 "Gooney Bird" aircraft. At the end of the week, the students received their jump wings from Ralph Manley, a surviving member of the 101st Airborne Division who jumped in Normandy, Holland and Bastogne, and Gene Gilberth, another surviving member of the 101st who jumped in Holland and Bastogne.

Before “becoming” a World War II paratrooper, Colonel Jordan “defended” the Alamo. Last year, he participated in a total immersion event where the movie “The Alamo” was filmed in Austin, Texas.

“We had guys who actually played the Mexican Army and the defenders of the Alamo,” he said. “For four days, it felt like you were part of the Alamo. It was raining and it was cold. We went out, we pulled guard duty and rode mounted patrols just like they did. During the final day, they woke us up at three or four in the morning and said the Mexicans were attacking. It was dark, foggy and misting rain and you couldn’t see anything. All you can see is just the flashes from guns and cannons. For a while, it felt like you were there, minus the bullets whizzing around.”

The historians picked different personas of some of the defenders, based on their age and the part of the country they came from, to recreate a moment in history.

During the actual battle, the call went out from Colonel William Barret Travis for help defending the Alamo, and the village of Gonzales answered the call with 32 men. To recreate this, Colonel Jordan, along with 30 other horsemen, snuck out at night to act as the Gonzales Ranging Company, the group that answered the call to help defend the Alamo.

“None of the defenders knew that we had left,” Colonel Jordan said. "We rode into the fort like they did, and nobody knew we were coming. The looks on their faces were, ‘Where did they all come from?’ They didn't know we were coming. It's moments like that that give more credence to why you do certain things to get the feeling of an event just right.”

Before Colonel Jordan can change his persona into someone from the past, he must prepare. Based on the event, he said it could take a week or months to gather gear and prepare everything.

“I have to purchase all my own uniforms, gear, saddles and things like that,” he said. “Some of these events I try to carry period rations to try to do it like they would have done it. World War II is easy, because now you've got K-rations and Coca-Cola and things like that.

"If it's an event where I have to take my horse, it's going to be a couple weeks, because I have to get shoes put on him, get shots updated, get health and travel papers done, plus prep him for the event," Colonel Jordan said. "One event in Ohio was a 52-mile ride to commemorate Confederate General John Morgan's raid across Ohio in 1863. I couldn't just pull him out of the pasture and put him on a 52-mile ride, so it took me four months to prepare him for the event. Horses are just like athletes -- it takes a lot of training to ensure they are in shape.”

Colonel Jordan joked that his wife gives him a hard time about all of his gear needed for his pastime.

“It's to the point now my wife gets on me about having more military uniforms and reenactment uniforms then I do regular clothes,” he said. “I can't even guess on how much gear I have.”

The largest part of preparation for living historians is actually researching events, Colonel Jordan said.

“I tend to do a lot of research,” he said. “Some events have not been researched very well. Delving into that and reading original manuscripts and things like that, I get a bigger kick out of that than going out and firing at some guy.”

One such project Colonel Jordan enjoyed was research into the first U.S. dragoons, soldiers who do not fight on foot, but travel on horses. From the end of the War of 1812 until 1832, the United States did not have a standing dragoon or cavalry force, Colonel Jordan said.

“So, 1832 comes along, Congress authorized the raising of this first regiment of dragoons,” he said. “A friend of mine kind of put the bug in my ear and the fire to start looking at this.”

Colonel Jordan traveled to the Iowa Historical Society in Des Moines to view original documents from Henry Dodge, the commander of the dragoon force.

“I spent a whole day copying his military order book and reading through letters he had written to his daughters,” Colonel Jordan said. “Holding something he wrote in the 1830s and 1840s -- it was original. To me, that's where I get a lot of my joy.”