...I was flipping channels on the TeeVee. One local channel was covering the revels surrounding the Georgia-Florida game. I changed channels to see a similar, but far more boisterous, scene and thought "Wow, they're really getting out of hand down there. Waitaminnit! That's the frickin' Berlin Wall!" I started dancing in my living room...
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I was an exchange student in Germany that summer. Missed the whole damn party. But I did get to see East Berlin in all its communist glory - and as far as learning things goes, that was a better education.
"Waitaminute - this is the best place in the whole Warsaw Pact?"
I was on leave in the states, just having PCSed from the FRG.... I missed that party- it is one of my greatest regrets in life.
And Our Dear Leader has chosen to ignore the whole, inconvenient anniversary.
I was at home at our old family house, watching TV in the basement rec room. Flipped onto the news at around, oh, 6pm. Immediately realized that I was at a generational Moment akin to the Dallas assassination. Only a happier Moment.
For a few years, we all breathed a lot easier.
I was there for the party, US Army MP. Didn't get too close mind you. But got a chunk of the wall sitting in my desk.
Anonymous--
Yabbut if this had happened under a Donk president, he'd be breaking his neck to get there.
Oh, wait. He wouldn't be the center of attention. Never mind.
I've got a piece of it I gave my Dad. It's now on my bookshelf in the den.
He was called back to active duty when things started warming up over there. He was going to be leading a tank column. As it turned out, they reassigned him to Ft. Holabird's spook school at the last minute and we spent awhile living in a Baltimore rowhouse.
Regards,
Rabbit.
It didn't come down easily, that's one thing people forget.
It wasn't melted into Hippie-Goo by Flower-Power, or lifted off the ground by RD-170's in an ascent to Socialist Paradise in some MarxistLenninistHimmelfahrt.
I remember watching a guy with a sledgehammer beating on it until he couldn't hold the hammer - and then another person took-up the job - and they only made a tiny hole. That damn thing wasn't going anywhere without a fight.
And one part of it was covered in Rote-Armee propaganda and hammer-and-sickle asshattery. The KPDML wanted the wall down so they could spread across West Germany unfettered.
I just remember thinking "Ohhhhh, crap. Tiananmen Square all over again."
Glad I was wrong.
Coming home and seeing the crowd in the square in Budapest, all the Hungarian flags with the communist stars ripped out, that did it for me. I sat down and cried like a baby.
I had the pleasure of serving in the NATO command in Norfolk at the time. Our German officers all took leave and went home. Our German intel officer returned with a chunk and a photo. It matched an earlier one of himself and two friends standing next to the newly built wall. Now they were standing in front of a pile of rubble. You should have seen their grins....
I was on USS Forrestal in the Med. President GHW Bush brought us a chunk of it.
I was over there, and had a chance to get my own half-dollar sized piece of the Wall. Our New Leader didn't go to celebrate, because after all, why should he? His Socialist Paradise side lost. He probably had to be here for Bill Ayers to have a shoulder to cry on.
You should all know an old d.p. In the Region, they're legion, thank God, the good old folk, the ones who knew. Nothing like hearing a former Warsaw Pact resident tell you how this country is racing to become what they fled, and seeing that "my nads are jumping up into my stomach" look on their faces as they say it.
Honestly, I have no recollection of those days.
All these 20th anniversary specials on the radio and TV did was to reminded me that a) I'm still paying solidarity tax after all those years and b) that the 9th is a friend's birthday and that I should call her.
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