Images of War         

Slogging through snow and mud, eating K-rations in the dark, and being shot at (albeit with blanks) isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. But for engineering professor Joel Barnett and his fellow World War II reenactors, it’s a passion.

Barnett is one of several hundred World War II reenactors in Middle Tennessee. His unit, which includes both civilians and active-duty and retired soldiers, is affiliated with the 101st Airborne Division’s museum in Clarksville, Tenn.

Each day as more and more veterans of the “good war” pass away, memories of the conflict die with them. World War II reenactors seek to preserve the war’s history, educate themselves and others, and have fun doing it.

“Reenactors take it seriously,” Barnett says.

A lifelong student of history (he teaches a course on the history of technology to engineering freshmen each year) and a 30-year photography enthusiast, Barnett portrays a combat photographer during reenactments. He uses three vintage cameras that he bought on eBay: a large Speed Graphic flash camera, a small Signal Corps WWII issue Kodak, and a German Leica made in 1936. And he bears an uncanny physical resemblance to famed Iwo Jima photographer Joe Rosenthal.

“Reenacting has taught me how difficult it was for those photographers to get the pictures we see in history books,” Barnett says. “The cameras were not automatic in any respect. They had to manually set the focus, the shutter speed and everything else, and then get the picture while someone was shooting at them.”

Unfriendly Fire

Barnett’s unit stages several different types of reenactments: tactical events in which they practice military skills, spectator battles for the public, and historical displays and demonstrations of artifacts and equipment from the WWII era.

His most exciting experience came during a tactical event when his unit was trying to slip through the woods around a group of “German soldiers.”

“We were sure we had out-flanked them,” he says. “But we had miscalculated and exited the woods right in front of them. They opened fire and we were doomed. That experience taught me that a soldier’s fate depended both on skill and a little bit of luck.”

The most poignant moment for this son of a WWII veteran came during a historical presentation where he met a former soldier from his father’s old unit.

“My dad died in the late 1970s, and there were a lot of things that I never got around to asking,” he says. “Hearing some of the fine details that I didn’t know, like the name of the ship they sailed on and a city-by-city itinerary as they went across Europe, was a great experience.”

By day, Barnett, a 1993 Vanderbilt engineering Ph.D. graduate, is associate professor of the practice of engineering in the mechanical engineering department. He leads the senior design program, in which students work on “real-world” design projects in cross-departmental teams.

Before joining the faculty in 1997, Barnett served as president of Mid-South Engineering Inc. and was involved in research collaborations with NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). His research interests include weld pool dynamics, welding automation, and nano-particle behavior in fluid environments.