Arrows were flying low in another thread, and just en passant it turned out some of us like to dress up funny and do strange things with other people dressed likewise. Well, for the most of these actions, I earn my money with it, as I'm dressing up in tie and suit and discuss business with my clients, but in the spare time there's mail, armour, uniforms, lances and swords, guns and bows.
I got "hooked" into Civil War Reenactment by my eldest brother. There's actually a quite big community in Germany doing that hobby, originating from a very strange ylem brewed together from Wild West TV Shows and dime novels, mingled with a bit "Gone with the Wind" and Karl May (the German equivalent of Zane Grey). That was why in the 90ies there was a higher quota of rebels present at Civil War Reenactment Events than there was in Tennessee (I compared). With the years, it turned better, and by now we a quite even.
Being a leftist liberal and abolitionist I could go nowehere but for the Union, even if that meant support for the Republican Party. Well, things have changed.
Things have changed in my life as well. I broke my foot while attending an event last year, and I'm kinda worried about my hearing. Guns make a terrible noise. That's why I got in contact with a Roman Reenactment group in the vicinity I'd like to join. These guys are even stranger than the bogus US Army I normally hung around with, and I'm looking forward to meeting with them.
Some of you may remember a pic of my wife and me dressed as Galadriel and Uruk-hai, but that armour was out of cardboard for carnival, and while I am the proud owner of a Star Wars stormtrooper armour, it was just an occasion on ebay in 1999 and I only wore it once.
Enough babble about me. There's still that question "What did officers commanding archers yell before firearms were invented (and the cry "fire" became meaningful)?"