Re-enactors flock to military history fest

Pirates, Romans, Revolutionary War soldiers, Elizabethan bodyguards and other historical re-enactors took people who attended the annual Military History Fest/Reenacting and Trade Faire through 2,000 years of military history — all in one convention center.

Held at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, the convention offered seminars on topics such as World War II re-enaction and Civil War-era dancing, along with live performances of bagpiping and battlefield ballads. It continues Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“It is literally everything from ancient periods through modern, civilian and military,” Military History Fest organizer Mike Bollom said.

But don’t change time periods too quickly, advised Sandra Howard of Chicago, a member of the Guild of St. George, a group that re-creates the court of British Queen Elizabeth as it travels through the countryside.

“You can get whiplash from changing centuries every time you turn around,” she said.

Howard’s Elizabethan re-enactors were situated near the 12th Lancers Regiment of Chicago, which set up a Polish World War II encampment, and not far from a group of Roman re-enactors from Fort Wayne, Ind.

“We come to this every year. This is the first year we’ve set up a tent,” said Lee Holeva, who was dressed in Roman chain-mail acting as his character, Titus Licinius Neuraleanus. “We see all the other displays and what they’ve done.”

Convention attendees could visit all 13 live enactments then cast a vote for their favorite. The 20-by-20 foot encampment spaces, filled with shelters, weapons and artifacts from each era, were a new addition to Military History Fest this year, as was a display of military vehicles and heavy weapons.

Rich Healy of Plano has attended the convention in the past, and this year he said he looked forward to learning more ways to improve his re-enaction of a Confederate soldier from North Carolina who fought during the Civil War.

“I’m a re-enactor, I just don’t dress for the day,” Healy said. “I do school programs, so I want to go to the session on making your first-person impression good.”