The Elks Lodge is heavily defended this weekend

By Bryan McKenzie

Published: August 15, 2008

From where Vaughn Wagnon stands — about five feet deep — the Germans don’t have a chance of taking the Elks Lodge.

“This is the perfect spot for a machine gunner,” Mr. Wagnon explains, pointing toward the intersection of Stony Point Road and Fontana Drive. “With riflemen on the far side of the intersection and another group on this side, the machine gunner can shoot over their heads and cover that whole intersection. That will make it tough for them to get through.”

Mr. Wagnon, 84, knows what he’s talking about. He’s been in similar situations in similar World War foxholes while with the 102nd Infantry Division in France, Belgium and Germany. He can vouch for this particular foxhole because he dug it.

From Jamestown to Iraq

Mr. Wagnon is part of the All-American Honor Guard’s 12th annual living history exhibit being held today and Sunday in the Elks Lodge’s front yard, across from Darden Towe Park. The exhibit officially runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The guard’s members are collectors and amateur historians who depict the living conditions and battle-readiness of American soldiers from Jamestown to Iraq. Consider the event, which is free to the public, as a portable Williamsburg with firepower demonstrations, a military band from Fort Lee and the Confederate cavalry.

Keeping it all safe from the Third Reich will be Mr. Wagnon with a Browning automatic machine gun and a guard in the carefully camouflaged foxhole.

“I think I dug a thousand of these,” Mr. Wagnon says. “I was in combat for eight months and we’d move into position at night and the sergeant would say ‘dig in’ and we’d dig. In the morning, he’d say ‘you guys are in the wrong spot,’ take us somewhere else and tell us to dig in, again.”

A primer for your hole

There is method in the madness of foxhole digging. It’s only shoulder width and five feet long with a deeper hole in the middle. That hole, or sump, is where water collects, helping keep feet dry.

“You want it to be deep so that you’re just looking over the top of it to see,” Mr. Wagnon said, standing low below the would-be battleground. “You want it narrow so you have some protection from shrapnel from any aerial shells the burst above you. Essentially, you want to limit your vulnerability to a direct hit.”

Most holes, dug with a simple, short-handled trenching tool, were abandoned within a day. Sometimes, however, troops got lucky.

“If we were in one position for a couple of days, we’d dig a shelf back into the ground of the hole where one of us could sleep and still be protected while the other one watched,” he recalled. “You could fix it really nice, for a hole in the ground. If anyone wants to hop in and see what it’s like, they’re welcome to.”