GDG- GUIDES

[manassas1 at comcast.net]

Esteemed Members:

I thought I'd share with you the Evening Star Editor Marc Charisse's OPINION of the current guide situation:

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"Have guides lost their way?"
by Marc Charisse
Evening Sun - January 6, 2008

"My battlefield buddies used to call me, "LBG wannabe," as in "What's that monument over there, Mr. LDG wannabe?"

"I still fantasize about proudly wearing the cool blue cap of a Licensed Battlefeield Guide on occasion as I track down each obscure flank marker and rock carving.  What could be better than spending your days sharing your knowledge and love for Gettysburg?"

"But with all the bickering between the guides' new leadership, the Gettysburg Foundation and the National  Park Service, I'm not so sure.  As much as I admire the guides, I sure wouldn't want to fight on the losing side of a wrong-headed cause."

For nearly a century, the licensed guides have occupied a special place in the battlefield's history and traditions.  Under federal law since 1913, no one but a guide who has passed the rigorous licensing test may offer a paid tour of the battlefield.  That blue hat is nothing less than a U.S. government seal of approval that you really know your stuff and you know how to tell it."

"I took my first LBG tour six or seven years ago--two hours on the few square feet of the Peach Orchard.  I already knew the battlefield well enough to give my own two-hour tour--or so I thought--and wanted the detailed tactics and human interest stories from a small, often overlooked section of the field."

"It was an impressive performance, full of passion and precision.  Our guide filled the air with lead and tales of fools and heroes.  He rattled off the names of individual regiments and batteries with military rigor."

"I realized how much I didn't know.  And I was hooked."

"In the months and years that followed, I've had the privilege of walking the field with many more LBGs, and got to know a few of them when I took the class leading to the licensing test.  (I scored in the top 15 percent, missing the cutoff that year by six out of about 240 who took the exam.  But my friends, anyway, have dropped the "wannabe" and promoted me to full-fledged LBG.)"

"The real guides I've met have been without exception men and women whose love for the battlefield makes touring Gettysburg a unique experience among America's military parks."

"They offer the first-time visitor the ultimatley interactive tour, and they can take a buff through the complex evoluations of the Wheeatfield fight.  They donate their time to anniversary walks and tours for preservaton groups, and for a newspaperman around here, they're a great source of history and human interest for battlefield stories."

"You'd think they worked for the Park Service.  And in fact, they do."

"Their monopoly under federal law gives the park the right, the obligation actually, to regulate the guides in the public interest.  And the reservation system recently demanded by the Gettysburg Foundation and the Park Service will serve the public better than the current "show up and hope a guide is available" way of doing things."

"The advent of the foundation--charged with enhancing services in an effort to increase now stagnant visitation--is changing things in Gettysburg and that has plenty of folks riled up.  But that's no reason to get mixed up in the historic us-against -them politics that complicate community-Park Service relations.  And maybe the guides have been allowed to function as a privileged guild for too long."

"No doubt many don't want to move from the current system where visitors pay cash, to credit-card reservations."

"But the guides I've talked to are appalled at the fuss being made, at current LBG president Rick Hohmann's pronouncement that the guides will leave the visitor center for their own office in Gettysburg, at picking the wrong side of a fight with the Park Service."

"Hohmann is sounding less like a guide and more like a union agitator all the time, demanding a contract and comparing the Park Service to the Gestapo.  He likens the reservation system to a theater dictating what time you want to see "Harry Potter"."

"I hope his battlefield analogies are better.  That's more like the set-up now.  In fact, the current system is like telling movie goers to show up in the morning and maybe we'll show the movie today."

"The American public expects better these days."

"I'm glad guides I've talked to say Hohmann doesn't speak for them, though many are reluctant to speak for themselves in the current angry climate."

"But there's no doubt in my mind that leaving the visitor center will hurt the guides.  And it will hurt the American public.  Most Gettysburg visitors, I'm sure, will start their tour at the visitor center and miss out on this unique tradition in American history."

"To paraphrase the Union soldiers when a valorous reb went down, the guides deserve a better cause to die for."

                                                                * * * * * *

Eileen M. Murphy
Bristow, VA
 

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: JIM COOKE <cooke1863 at embarqmail.com> 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> >From the Hanover Evening Sun today: 
> http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_7894616 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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