http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/nyregion...

SACKETS HARBOR, N.Y. — Clayton F. Nans, a 57-year-old retired Marine colonel, halted his Chevrolet pickup truck near Lake Ontario recently and pointed to a grassy embankment. It was the very spot, he said, where British troops first made landfall in this upstate village, before American soldiers fought off their invasion.

That engagement was two centuries ago, in the Second Battle of Sackets Harbor, a key New York moment in the War of 1812, whose bicentennial is fast approaching. And Mr. Nans, who periodically dons the blue woolen coat of an early 19th-century Marine as a War of 1812 re-enactor, is upset that New York State is not doing anything to commemorate it.

“I know people who can go their whole life and will be just as happy not to know about any War of 1812,” said Mr. Nans, who, as the uniform attests, is quite happy to know about the war: a life-size cutout of him and two of his children in period costume is on display in the local 1812 visitors’ center.

“This community thinks it’s important,” he said
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