Patriot Games.

Byline: BOB KEEFER The Register-Guard

THE BRITISH are coming.

Well, Brits of a sort, anyhow. Not once but twice on the Fourth of July, a tiny cadre of red-coated, musket toting, Revolutionary War-era troops, drilled with fussy English precision, will invade the very American turf of Creswell Middle School.

There - at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. precisely - they'll do noisy battle with a similar contingent of Yanks, who will, undoubtedly, prevail.

The battle re-enactment, and an accompanying historically accurate military encampment in the middle of town next to the Creswell Presbyterian Church, are open to the public at no charge.

Both units will also march in the Creswell Fourth of July parade, which heads down Oregon Avenue at 11 a.m. from Eighth Street.

The encampment runs from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will offer living history demonstrations on such topics as Revolutionary War-era musketry - complete with firing - the period's clothing and even its cooking.

The whole thing is being put together by the Old Dominion Living History Association, a group of Willamette Valley history enthusiasts who insist that battle re-enactments are more about reliving history than playing soldier.

Jeff Prechtel, one of the leaders of the group, has been performing such interpretive history for more than 20 years. In real life a 38-year-old art director for a Eugene advertising company, Prechtel said the idea of the American Revolution kind of grew on a bunch of people who had been separately involved in more traditional re-enactment fare, from the Civil War to fur trading encampments.

"The Revolution is sort of a displaced interest out here in the West, but we all had that same kind of interest," he explained. "We were already doing colonial frontier stuff, Daniel Boone and that kind of thing. Gradually we all decided we liked the Revolutionary War stuff."

Thus was born Old Dominion - the term refers to the colony of Virginia - which counts nine fully qualified soldiers among the group, with perhaps as many associated wives and children.

The leader of the British contingent, based on the Royal marines who accompanied the warship HMS Charon, is Portland safety analyst Bill Armstrong.

"I watched too many Disney movies as a child," says Armstrong, 34, who grew up in Los Angeles and was, like Prechtel, a Fess Parker fan. "Too many war movies. My father was an armchair historian. Re-enacting seemed a way to embrace history without having to just sit and read about it."

It takes a full year to become a soldier in Old Dominion. During that time the new recruit studies, assembles a kit of uniform and weapon, and learns proper military drill from the period.

The whole thing is very detail-oriented. "It's like practical archaeology. You are actually going out and field-testing things," Armstrong said. "What we do is try to replicate the experience as closely as possible. Hand-sewing things. Making our own hats. Making everything you can make from hand or having people in the group do it."

One thing that Old Dominion is not about is playing soldier.

Trevor Meredith saw enough of the reality of soldiering as a member of the real-life British Royal Artillery for 23 years before marrying an American woman and settling down in Creswell.

Yes, a true Brit is soldiering among the Old Dominion ranks. And he says he has few fond memories to re-enact from his own combat experience.

"You would not want to go re-enact the boredom and tribulations and starvation and terror of those days," says Meredith, who served in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Desert Storm.

"I have been shot at many times. And I actually contracted dysentery in Cyprus. If I saw someone re-enacting that, I would find it very curious. None of us are going to drag ourselves out of the hay in the morning, eat some gruel and march 40 miles though a dusty plain in order to show what it felt like," he said.

Re-enacting is more about theater than paintball, he said.

`The idea is to say, `Did you realize that the majority of Americans - or British citizens as they were then - were actually pro loyalist?' A lot of the people leading the Revolution were Ivy League and had a vested interest in parting from the Crown for business interests.'

Meredith joined up with Old Dominion almost exactly a year ago after seeing the group's historical encampment last Fourth of July in Creswell.

"I have always been interested in that period of history, what went on, and the drama about it," he said. "They invited me to join their merry band."

Meredith originally planned to become a Continental soldier, fighting with Prechtel's Virginia Regiment. "My initial inkling was to join the other side," he said. "I am a bit of a rebel, myself."

But he got a great deal on some period British military equipment at a mountain man rendezvous he attended near Mount Hood.

Armstrong, who is from California, has been performing in historical re-enactments since 1987. He had portrayed figures from various periods, such as the American West, but had long wanted to try out the Revolution when he hooked up with Prechtel and they started Old Dominion three years ago.

The group is sometimes obsessed with historical detail, he admitted.

"We all read heavily," he said. "We are all very much into the time period. We argue over minutiae, which drives our wives nuts."

But the Old Dominion members have a greater mission, which is to educate the public about not only details but about the larger picture of what happened when upstart colonists in America broke away from the British crown.

Armstrong seized on the Mel Gibson movie, "The Patriot," as a good example of bad history. The movie badly oversimplified the issue, making the British into classic movie bad guys.

"The portrayal of the British and loyalist side is completely out of context," Armstrong said. `They almost belong in a movie like `Star Wars.' The evil guy is based on a real person - and he was not an evil person. He did not burn people in churches. Those are the things that drive us crazy. We sit and argue over it and our wives throw shoes and pencils at us.'

The American Revolution has certain parallels, from the British point of view, to the United States' experience in Vietnam.

"It was an unpopular war in Britain," Armstrong said. "A lot of people were trying to put an end to it. It was a huge drain on them."

Armstrong has thus found himself in greater sympathy with the British side. `Most Americans have a skewed view of what the British were about. These people were not aliens. They were your neighbors. That adds an interesting dimension to what is not covered in movies like `The Patriot.' This was a very personal war.'

Speaking of taking it personally, the Old Dominion troops haven't always been greeted with public approval this year. In the atmosphere of super-charged Americanism that has prevailed since Sept. 11, Armstrong has endured catcalls and accusations about his own patriotism.

This, he says, is a reflection of the very historical ignorance Old Dominion is trying to combat.

`Recently at a trade show in Washington I got: `How can you be wearing that uniform in these times?' ' he said. `Unless you've been completely sleeping under a rock, you'd know our closest allies helping us since Sept. 11 have been the British. I wanted to say to the guy, `Are you totally an idiot?' '

Features reporter Bob Keefer can be reached by phone at 338-2325 and by e-mail at [e-mail].

CAPTION(S):

William Harvey rolls up the flag after practice. CHRIS PIETSCH / The Register-Guard (From left) David Harvey, Trevor Meredith, Jeff Prechtel, Corey Prechtel and Scott Dano practice. Left: Corey Prechtel pulls a hand-rolled cartridge of gun powder from a cartridge box typical of the period. Above: Corey, 15, gets help with his uniform from his father, Jeff Prechtel. David Harvey, Corey Prechtel, William Harvey, Scott Dano, Trevor Meredith and Jeff Prechtel practice marching near Creswell. Top: Meredith fires his musket.