My name is Rollin Curtis, owner of At the Front, and I'd like to thank you for visiting the site.

First and foremost, it's the post 2020 world and we need to address the smattering of naughty symbols on our site. For those who may be horrified with the "hate" items on the site, don't have a seizure. It's not what it appears to be. We aren't associated with nor sympathetic to any sort of dime store natzee/ white power/ trailer park fascism bullshit.

At the Front is a company located in central Kentucky, specializing in recreating clothing and equipment worn by soldiers in the Second World War. Since 1992, we have supplied reenactors, films, costume houses, veterans, military and government historical projects as well as people who simply like vintage clothing and accessories. We have our own factory on site which produces about two hundred products, and over a thousand other items are contracted with companies in the USA, China, Germany, India, Pakistan, Belgium and England. I have over 40 years experience with WWII militaria and living history, as well as 6 years jumping out of planes and helicopters in the "real" Army.

Today, in 2024, with a staff of 20, we offer a wide range of period reproductions (plus occasional authentic items), approximately 20% of which we manufacture in our own factory. The vast majority of our products are exclusive to ATF as most reproductions offered elsewhere have one or more shortcomings that rankle me. I strive to always copy only original examples in order to offer replicas that are as close to the period items as possible. To that end, we maintain large collection of authentic militaria for reference which I often share on the site, in spam emails, or social media.

Lastly, my prior work experience never involved any experience in sales or marketing- and it shows. My descriptions and communications are plain spoken and as honest as I can be- the typically smarmy, patronizing and tiresome sales jargon one finds just about everywhere else is absent at ATF. It's not uncommon for me to say things that most businesses wish they could but are afraid to. It's obvious that I was an NCO and not an officer.

The longer story of how this came to be...

How the hell does one end up making a career of recreating WWII stuff? I saw Patton on TV when I was 4 and was immediately hooked on WWII. I started model building around the age of 5, and devouring history books on warfare of all eras. In 1979, at age 12, I was at a meeting of the Louisville Military Modeler's Club, when one of the other members brought in his real uniform and equipment from a reenactment. I immediately forgot about plastic tanks and ships- I wanted the real stuff. A few months later, I attended my first military show to look for gear, and by the Summer of 1980 I was "in the field" suffering under the weight of a helmet, K98 rifle, ammunition and gas mask. Yes, I chose to portray one of the bad guys. Why German? Simple. That was the local unit.

Events in the 1980's were somewhat different than those today, with the vast majority being "tacticals", which were essentially wargaming in 3D. Military issue grenade and artillery simulators were often handed out like candy during the safety & authenticity inspections, and many events had active duty military personnel acting as referees. Running through the woods at Weldon Spring chasing a real M4 Sherman tank, with an original Panzerschreck, that actually fired rockets (balsa wood powered by F engines) was heaven for a 15 year old. Events began Friday afternoon and ran until about lunch time on Sunday. Miles long road marches and extensive field time were the norm, and many participants were combat veterans (Vietnam, Korea, and some WWII) and their tutelage proved incredibly helpful when I joined the real Army a few years later.

After the Army, I returned to college to see if I could figure out what to do when I grew up. I also needed some sort of employment, and Tom Arter (Axis & Allies) agreed to let me work gun shows for him. This I did for a year and it taught me (some of) the ropes of running a small business. In 1993, with Tom's encouragement, I decided go off on my own and only deal in WWII items, still mostly German. (Most allied reenactors didn't need reproductions- they wore originals.)

The real beginning of ATF was when I got a burr in my pants for a good reproduction A-frame- (a quirky piece of German fieldgear) of which no good reproductions existed at that time. I spent months scrounging for the right webbing- I finally found something close at G & K Shoe company in downtown Louisville, but it was pale yellow. With trial and error I figured out how to dye it with RIT on my Mom's stove. Then I bought a Pfaff heavy duty sewing machine that could handle the webbing and leather- hoofing that monstrosity down the basement stairs was an event in itself. After Lord knows how many hours, dollars, headaches and false starts, I finally had a pretty good reproduction A-frame. I proudly strapped it on at the next event....and hated it. I never wore one again.

One of my early A-frames, 1993-94

Despite my disdain for the A-frames, many other people asked me to make them one. It was obvious that this was preferable to working at Hardees or 7-11, so off it went.

Up until this point, most vendors custom made everything, and very little was actually stocked- items were not made until after they had been paid for. Waiting weeks or months was the norm, not the exception. Early on, I decided not to take money from anyone unless I had the item in hand, ready to deliver. This wasn't a well thought out part of my business plan (plan? what plan?) but simply a result of my being somewhat lazy and easily annoyed. As soon as people give you money, they start pestering- "I know you said 3 weeks, but it's been 3 days and I'm just checking" etc, etc. The wisdom of this policy made itself rapidly apparent, with fewer complaints and more sales.

In 1997 I inherited some money from my grandmother (Kate Kirkman- sound familiar?) and I went to Los Angeles to see SM Wholesale. $50,000 later I was driving across the desert in a purple Dodge Caravan packed full of WWII junk - UPS was on strike and Fedex was too expensive so I drove it home. I rented a 1500 sq ft. building in an industrial park, hired my first employee and put out the first catalog. In October 1998, I was talking to Stevie (the owner of SMW) one morning and he mentioned having just been by Dreamworks' warehouse and seen the stuff from "that movie" they had just made and were taking bids on. After a phone call to Los Angeles to verify this info, I went to the bank, secured a line of credit, and we faxed over an offer. 4 days later they called and asked when we would be picking it up. In early November, two semis arrived, and soon the building was piled 12ft high with boxes- it looked a bit like the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

About this time, "The Rants" came into being. As with nearly everything else I've done, they were an accident. Like any business, we encounter certain, select customers who can ruin your day with in 30 seconds. When we screw up, criticism is warranted, even if people go a little overboard, and I'll usually tolerate it. However, there is that percentage of special types, the ones who like to send their food back 5 times at restaurants to impress their date, make the staff cry, blame their wife for bleaching their uniform, put their boots in an oven, make ludicrous demands and so forth. Having no background in customer service, and newly equipped with a website, I did what I deemed appropriate. I went off on some nitwit- on the home page. I can't remember what the original "rant" was about, but I clearly remember the look on our web guy's when he read it.
"You can't put that on the site!".

The hell I can't. And I did. The response was immediate- and mostly positive. Apparently this was like no other business, and many people appreciated me speaking like a normal person (an annoyed one) rather than a salesman. Over the years, I penned dozens of "rants", mostly dealing with some issue related to Re-enacting/ Living History, but occasionally deviating to current events when it struck me.

In 1999, it became obvious that US militaria was as popular as German and I gradually started adding it to the product line, but a very large obstacle soon became apparent- the unreliability of suppliers. Chinese ebay didn't exist, and the Indians and Pakistanis hadn't found the internet yet. The few guys in the US were horridly flaky at best. So, my naive self decided to start our own sewing factory- we had been making fieldgear for almost 10 years so why not clothing?

Initially, we tried to do it in Louisville, but a couple of help wanted ads in the paper produced exactly one phone call- from some lady who was like 110 years old and sewed teddy bears. In the Summer of 1999, Larry the paint-ball loving preacher stopped by, and we discussed my struggles with the factory idea. He pointed out that the Lake Cumberland area in central Kentucky was full of unemployed sewing workers due to Fruit of the Loom and OshKosh closing plants the year before and moving to Mexico. By December, we had rented a building, hired half a dozen ladies, and the new adventure had begun. A few months after that, I found a vacant 15,000 sq ft. slaughterhouse (true story) a few miles away in Columbia for a very reasonable price. Over the next year we had that building renovated and we left Louisville in the Summer of 2001. The move had just been completed when the planes hit the towers.

-Thanks for visiting!