#54. Amidst the Foxholes: A WW2 Reenactor’s Journey

Episode 54 – Victor Verano Part 2

[Anastasia] In mid-March I published part of my interview with WW2 re-enactor Victor Verano – where he talked about his work with the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society, being a re-enactor at their reunions, and meeting many of the Philippine Scout vets. (That was episode 49, I’ll a link to it in the show description).
But that’s just part of Victor’s re-enactment work. Today I’m sharing the other part of our conversation about the importance of understanding history by reliving it.
So without further ado, here’s my conversation with Victor.

[Anastasia] So it's not just making trailers in the Philippines that you do for reenactment. Do you want to talk about some of the other things you do as a reenactor?
[Victor] One of the main events that I volunteer at and participate in is the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's World War II weekend.
That's in Reading, Pennsylvania. I describe it as my Disney World. and I encourage you, if, you have some time, one of these days, to attend it, first and foremost, it's the World War II air show, you have the airplanes, World War II airplanes,
you can go up to them and enjoy them and you can write them. They'll cost you a little bit of money, but you can write in them.
[Anastasia] I've done that. Have I told you that I've written in a B 17. The B 17 flying fortress. I did it about two years ago and it was one of the coolest things I've ever done.
[Victor] Are you at the bombardier?
[Anastasia] I didn't have the money to sit like up front because that was like 1, 000 for a 15 minute flight I sat in the waist, which is where the gunners would have been. And so you could get up and walk around While the plane was up in the air, and I will tell you what, like the ball turret, when you look down, it's welded in, but between the welds, it's just a crack of open air and you can literally see the ground way below you.
And I don't know if this was how it was during, um, World War II. my guess is yes, but where the machine guns stick out the windows, there's a lot of airflow coming into those planes. So you're going from like the hot Philippines in a B17 all the way up to what, 22, 000 feet and where it's freezing and you have like the wind just coming in.
And maybe you've seen this, if you've seen the inside of a B 17, but the tail gunner has to crawl through the landing gear to get to that tail gun. They're definitely built for function and not for comfort. Cause I don't even think the gunners had seats to sit in during takeoff.
Some people got to sit in, the, um, Bombardier area.
[Victor] Oh, that's what I wanted.
[Anastasia] That's where it's costing you 1, 000. But I can only imagine the view from where the Bombardier sat.
[Victor] Well, I didn’t ride in a B 17.
I rode in a cheaper plane, but it's it's in a way I prefer that better. I rode in a backseat of a, Texan. it's a World War II trainer and it's the kind of plane that they disguised as Japanese planes in the movie Tora Tora Tora and Midway. So it's a World War II plane, two seater, there's a pilot in front, you're the only passenger.
[Anastasia] That's cool.
[Victor] And you can have the, the canopy, open and the way the air is blowing through. so I, I did that last year. And I had my GoPro in front of me. And then you can see it, you're flying around. And I was blowing my hair. I was like, wait, it's too windy. closed the cockpit, it was really fun.
The Reading World War 2 weekend, first and foremost is an annual world war II air show. but it's not just the air show. I would say that's just a third of the attraction because. On the ground there, I would say about a thousand reenactors.
There's a big display on the ground representing all the theaters. Many different armies, they have a mock French village. And it's a permanent, fixture. so hundreds of reenactors converging onto this event, every year., they would set up, an area for, the British army.
The Germans the Russians, and so on. The Pacific theater area. It's huge. It's huge. And the reenactors would set up the, the tents and encampments and their displays. It would bring in the tanks, path tracks, armored cars.
Both Germans, Americans, whatever everyone owns, you know, because reenactors are not just reenactors, they're also collectors, you know, so you see, uh, you know, somebody bringing in a truck on the truck, it's a tank. It gets displayed and it's not just a display because there's a battle, every day of the weekend.
So you got your air show, that's one thing. You have a sprawl of reenactor displays that you could, it'll take you all day just to check it out, you're checking out the weapons or the trucks or whatever else.
The reenactors They're educators, you know, they would be talking to the public and telling them about this and that. They have a battle with the Germans at mock French village.
They have an Iwo Jima. The Marines would have a, battle out on the field. They're attacking Mount Suribachi. They have a makeshift hill, and they would be attacking it. They would have a flamethrower that they would demo to the crowd, but it's part of the attack., And then they would have a force and force, Germans versus the Americans battle out on the field with the tanks, and the armored vehicles, and infantries, when the air show actually gets underway and the Japanese planes fly the Navy planes would also fly and make it look like they're chasing after the Japanese planes.
Okay? All these going on. To dovetail with the Iwo Jima reenactment on the ground with all these planes, but also on our side of the encampment, every time the Japanese planes, Fly by, we're supposed to shoot it. It's so much fun! You know, and then it'll be like, you know, the air raid siren would go,
it's just playing army, it's a lot of fun,
[Anastasia] So I'm just curious, are there, Japanese re-enactors there?
[Victor] Yes. there's not a whole lot, there was a time when there was a big Chinese representation, World War II Chinese, group.
so they have a camp there. They would be portraying the World War II Chinese. Then at some point, they would change to Japanese impressions and then we would have a skirmish where they would surprise attack our camp and I would die.
We would all die, you know, and all that. It's fun.

[Anastasia] Is it at that air show where you met some of the band of brothers men?
[Victor] Yes.
[Anastasia] You and I share in common that band of brothers are, well, it's my desert Island movie.
[Victor] That's probably 80 percent of reenactors, that would be the same Desert Island movie too,
The Reading Air Show, they also have the hangar where they, um, well, there's fewer and fewer of them, but the World War II vets would be there signing books, telling their stories.
It's, it's wonderful.
I noticed that there are a lot of women reenactors when it gets to closer to the evening, And they look really nice, flowers in their hair, all curled hair, Donnie 1940 style, hats, gloves, they had a hangar dance! At night
So that hangar did the vets during the day, they cleared that out. And there's a stage, they bring in a live Glenn Miller band. and it becomes a dance floor, kind of like in Memphis Belle. The planes would be parked outside, the jeeps and, and World War II cars would be parked outside and, I would say 80 percent of the people, if not 90 percent would be wearing period clothing.
It's also attended by swing dancers, they're just there for the dance. Many times I would shake my hand and I'm like, wait, I feel like I'm in a movie, the sun setting, and the lights starting to, glow, and there's people milling about in, in World War II attire, it's our annual date night. my wife and I.
[Anastasia] do you wear your Philippine scout, uniform when you go?
[Victor] Half the time, half the time I try to put on my impression of my grandfather. from my mother's side, he was in the Philippine army.
[Anastasia] I feel like this has become a commercial for that air show, but it’s not.
[Victor] I highly recommend it. It's coming up in June.
[Anastasia] For anyone who's interested. I'll find the link to that so that you can check it out.
Do you feel like you're living the history and it feels like it makes it more alive and that you can appreciate it more?
[Victor] 110%. Those who, who do reenactments, they're history buffs, because you can read all you want about the history, but to experience some of it, it's a, another level of appreciation.
[Anastasia] I can really relate to that because I love history. Obviously I love World War II history, but just any type of history I'm always interested in. And when I go places, I often like to look around and imagine what the space that I am inhabiting right now, How people in the past inhabited that space, cause we share this space. The pony express trail? So it literally runs right behind my house. Like if I pointed the camera outside my window right now, you could see the pony express trail. Cause it runs right outside my backyard.
And so sometimes I'll take my kids down the old pony express trail because where I live, it's in the suburbs and it's paved. But if I go 15 miles, it's not paved anymore. It's dirt roads. And I could actually follow it through the Utah West desert and into Nevada.
We've gone a few hours on the trail there's some old stops along the way, like their pit stops or whatever. And it's just so interesting to think this world that I consider mine, we've shared it. With so many people, and I wonder if that kind of goes along with, the appeal of reenacting.
[Victor] Yes, there's so much overlap. I can relate to that what you're describing because living in the East Coast, you know, old cities, old houses, old buildings, um, you'll see some old house crumbling and some property. And I'm always shaking my head. I wish I was. rich enough to buy that and restore it, it has to be restored.
[Anastasia] Do you want to talk about some of the veterans you've been able to meet? Because I'm kind of jealous of who you've been able to meet.
[Victor] Well, I met most of them at the Reading World War II weekend because they would be in the hangar signing books, shaking people's hands. when Band of Brothers first came out, I think it had a slow start because you could only watch it on HBO, not everyone had HBO.
Even when the DVD came out, not everyone knew about it until it started showing in the history channel, every Memorial Day weekend, or during Veterans Day weekend,
[Anastasia] Here's something else I learned about Band of Brothers. I think that. September 11th happened right after the first episode was released and so they, they pulled all marketing for it or something like that after 9, 11.So I think that was another hit to why it had a slow start,
[Victor] Yes. Well, so I guess the reason I mentioned that is because. The first few years that I, would go to the Reading Air Show, I would say up to 2006, maybe?
They would be there, the Band of Brothers would be there, it wasn't until like later in the 2000s that the line started forming, and he started charging, maybe 25 for autograph of an item, but 2002, 2003, 2004, you know, there weren't a whole lot of lines and you could just walk up to them, the first band of brother I met was Forrest Guth. He's not in the series, but if you read the, uh, the book, he's in there. they just didn't write the character for him in the series.
But Forrest Guth is there. And he was selling some, some books and I was chatting with him. Sir, do you know Dick Winters? He would be like, oh yeah, I know him. He was the first one I met and I met, by himself, Bill Garnier.
I love him. he made you feel like you were his long lost buddy, you know, Hey buddy, how you doing, where have you been, you know, and then you would chat for a little bit and I'm of course awestruck and, pleasure to meet you, Bill Garnier. it's an honor and you shake hands and, a friend of mine would take a picture and I got him to sign so many of my things, my DVD, my book.
So 2010, I met, Don Malarkey. I met Ed Shames. Buck Compton
There's a whole bunch of them lined up there. It was like, a process, you know, there's a long line and it's like a receiving line. Oh. And you go and meet each of them. Yes. And you shook their hands and have them sign your book.
[Anastasia] I love hearing those stories. And I'm jealous. I would be pretty starstruck to meet those men. And really, honestly, I'm always starstruck to meet any World War II veteran a couple of years ago. I was at our local Costco, and I saw this man with a World War two veteran hat on it and he was like eating a hot dog.
So I brought my kids over and I was like, can we say hello? And I explained to my kids who he was. And so we chatted and it was such a privilege to meet somebody who served because there's, like you said, there aren't very many anymore who are alive.
[Victor] I saw a signed World War II helmet signed by Bill Garnier eBay and then the seller looks like he has a lot of items signed by Bill Garnier and he's like, this is authentic. I bid on the helmet.
I won it. Apparently it was his son, Gene Garnier, who was selling all of these. He was also 101st Airborne in Vietnam. And then I got a message from him. Hey, do you just want to pick this up? You know, cause you're in the area. And I'll save you some shipping.
And I'm like, hell yeah. Oh, go, go pick it up. You know, and I drive my son. Hey, come on. Let's go pick up. You're going to meet, Bill son. And he was there sitting outside the house. So I thought it was just going to hand it over to me, right?
Oh, he invited us in and we spent like an hour or so being entertained by Jean Garnier, and he was showing us all these memorabilia in the house, just trying to sell us. Hey, I want to sell my dad's car. You know, anyone interested in it, it still had the, uh, 101st Airborne Association, license plate frame and all that's like, I just really don't have, the space for this, you know, it was fun time.
I ended up, taking home a poster signed by the man. I bought them, you know, but it was a poster signed by the man.
[Anastasia] Okay. So the million dollar question is, did you get to meet Captain Winters ever?
[Victor] No, he didn't go to Redding. He was older than the rest of them. Right. And I think he had, Parkinson's or something. He never went, I always hoped that he would go. So when he passed away in 2011, he was buried in Africa, Pennsylvania, about maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes away from me, so I went over to his. Marker is his grave, so that's how I met him, but I didn't meet him in person, which is, oh, well, yeah, that's a bummer.
[Anastasia] You went to visit his grave and you told me that you saluted the man and not the, the rank. Is that the line?
[Victor] the line is “Salute the rank, not the man.” I'm the other way around. So it's, it's fun.

[Anastasia] Jumping in with a quick note here. I wish I hadn't spoken over Victor right there. I even tried editing out my voice, but didn't work.
So here's what we were talking about. In one of the scenes of the last episode of band of brothers, major Dick winters, who I consider to be the series overall main character. Comes face to face with his former commanding officer and almost nemesis captain Sobel.
By this time the war has ended and Sobel is still a captain while winters, who was a Lieutenant when under captain. So bull's command. Has progressed from Lieutenant to major. As Sobell walks by winters.
He turns his face away. And major winters calls out. Captain Sobel. We salute the rank, not the man. And so will reluctantly salutes winters. So when Victor visited major winter's grave, Victor saluted, the man, not the rank. An honor Dick winters, absolutely warrants. He was an amazing man. And I'll put a clip of that band of brothers seen on my website, so you can watch it.
Let's get back to Victor.

[Anastasia] Keeping with band of brothers, I know that you've been able to visit the actual locations. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
[Victor] We went to Bastogne It's in and that's a, hard to get to. There's no train that goes there. You're not going to be able to get around if you don't have a car.
And I wanted to get around because it's not just the museum I wanted to see. I wanted to go to the Foxholes, I wanted to go to Foy. And so I drove from Brussels, we, uh, went to the woods and there is a marker there for them with their names, and you just park on the side of the small road and you see the foxholes
[Anastasia] Are they the same ones they dug?
[Victor] Those foxholes, of course, would have eroded over time. And some of the, foxholes there were just dug again by reactors to preserve them because over time they would get shallower and shallower the trees over there, they're grown, but, I don't think they were the same trees, from World War II. But first of all, a lot of them had already been blown up. But if they had been the same ones, they'd be really tall and big and wide, you know. But no, they're still the same looking trees that you see in the, in the series.
When I was doing my research. Where they attacked Foy from the tree line where Lieutenant Dyke was leading the attack. That was much closer to Foy than when we went there, the tree line was further back. Oh, interesting. They couldn't have run through this like one mile of open land.

I have a collection of 1 of our 2 pictures before we go. I would look for them. Where would they be now? You know, I would be Google street viewing them I wanted that then and now picture. I love that stuff. We were in Foy and there's this farmhouse that it's kind of modern now it's been updated, but that's the same window same door from the World War Two picture.
And it said it was Foy it's not even a town. It's like an, collection of buildings. I told my son, Josh, there's the GI in the picture sitting down warming his hand on a fire in front of his house. why don't you do that?
Do that and I'll take a picture of you. And then the owner came up he didn't really speak English. I pulled out my phone and kind of Google translated, we were talking via my phone. Um, And I'll show him that it's French translation, and he said, let me move my car out of the way so you can take your picture.
[Anastasia] How does your son, enjoy that? Does he go along with you pretty well?
[Victor] Oh, yeah. He grew up playing toy soldiers and he loves history. So he loves playing with his toy soldiers. We have, uh, all kinds, before we left, I told him, look, why don't you bring some of your Toy Soldiers and the Higgins boats that you have and play with them at Utah Beach or Omaha Beach, you know, yeah, that would be so cool playing on location.
Not everyone can do that. And so when the tour guide left us alone, then he set it up on Utah Beach, and we're taking pictures and then. crowd gathered around us because, you know, they were like, oh, that's really cool, so he has pictures on Utah Beach playing with his army men and Higgins boats, after we came back here, I noticed that it's still full of sand.
And I was like, wait, let me wash these sand off of it, and then I collected them. Yeah. Sand from Utah Beach. You know? Yeah, totally.

[Anastasia] Victor and I spoke for nearly three hours, which tells you just how much we can go on and on about one of our favorite subjects.
As I re-listened to the conversation when creating this episode, I was struck by how participating in living history has been so impactful in both of our lives. There's just something about being where history happened or reenacting history. That allows one to perceive history in an entirely new way.
So here's a challenge:
Is there something historical near you go and visit it, take your kids or grandkids, and try to envision what that historical place or event was like for the people who live through it.

Well, that’s Left Behind the Scenes for today. Be sure to like and subscribe to that you’re the first to know when I drop next week’s episode – about the American POWs from Corregidor forced march though Manila in a Japanese attempt to show the Filipino populace how much more powerful Japan was than the United States.
Have a fantastic week.