Vietnam Buffs Bring Jungle to Va.

"You in the bunker, with your back to me," Gouge said, raising his voice. "You're out."

It was Hubble, and he yelled back that he knew he was dead: "I've been out for the last 10 minutes!"

The reenactors try to recapture the war's fear and danger, but the biggest risk is turning the war into a game or parody. Because they rely on the honor code to determine "kills," sometimes there's a dispute over whether someone is dead. Battles often come to an abrupt end when people get tired or when weapons jam. The commanders carry walkie-talkies to tell one another where their teams are -- there's nothing worse than walking around and not finding an ambush.

Gouge admitted that it sometimes feels fun -- and he hates that. He wants to feel scared and somber. "You're remembering what they did," he said.

At his middle school, Gouge has only a few days to teach the Vietnam War at the end of the required state curriculum. At first, his students can't locate Vietnam on a map. It is as unknown to them as it was to Americans before the 1960s.

At home, Gouge keeps a "war room." Once crowded with Civil War memorabilia, the basement shelves are now filled with items that Vietnam veterans have given him: leftover C-rations, field manuals, pictures, radios and letters from home. A full dress uniform hangs in one corner.

His father lives next door, but when he visits, he avoids this room.

Jack Gouge was drafted in 1968 soon after getting married. For nine months, he drove a jeep, ferrying supplies to satellite support bases in the jungles.When he left Vietnam, he was so jumpy from memories of sniper fire, he avoided turning his back on anybody.

"When I came back, I tried to forget," said Gouge, 58, a retired phone company manager. "Can't recall it. Don't want to."

When his son wanted to join friends enlisting in the Army after high school, Gouge and his wife said no. They told him to go to college first.

They remain puzzled over his interest in the Vietnam War. Eloise Gouge wishes he had stuck with the Civil War. "Vietnam," she said, "we lived through that."

"I think he's gone too far," Jack Gouge said. Although he said he was proud to serve his country, he didn't attend reunions of his unit. He finally went to one only because his son, well known among the veterans because of his books, was asked to give a speech.