So, there’s been a lot of discussion about “Do you remember where you were when the Berlin Wall came down?”
The answer is yes – I was in Grinnell, Iowa at college. For the most part, I don’t remember the day being terribly remarkable. I ran into a friend – Sarah Gottschalk – in the South Campus loggia. We both had the slightly wild look that college students get when they are feeling overwhelmed. We both had multiple papers due in the next few days. We stood in the chilly loggia talking about how momentous the day was and we wondered if we could get to Berlin to join the party. We both had credit cards and knew we could buy the tickets. Neither of us had readily accessible passports. We gave up our plan to fly to Berlin and wandered back to our respective studies.
What do you remember about the day? Anything?
#1 by Richard Warnick - November 10th, 2009 at 15:12
I never got to see the Berlin Wall, but since it was ugly and universally hated, what’s to see?
When I deployed to Germany for six months with my Army unit in the 1970s, they had a program of exercising treaty rights by encouraging soldiers on leave to visit East Berlin. At the end of World War II, Berlin was divided into four sectors by the U.S., British, French and Russians. The Russian sector was required to admit uniformed members of the other Allied powers.
I never went, probably I was too busy. I did get to see some of the tanks of the Berlin Brigade when they came to train at Grafenwoehr. Unlike the grungy, camouflaged look of typical armored fighting vehicles, the Berlin Brigade had shiny green M-60 A1’s with big white stars on the turrets, white trim, and chrome lug nuts on the wheels!
The Cold War was weird.
#2 by Larry Bergan - November 10th, 2009 at 18:40
It was obvious the wall was coming down when Ronald Reagan injected himself into the scene. Gorbachev, wisely, stayed out of the conversation.
#3 by Larry Bergan - November 10th, 2009 at 18:52
Any event in history is effected by many different circumstances. The supposed fall of the Soviet Union and Richard Nixon was also influenced by American Rock n’ Roll and the Beatles.
This coming Thursday on PBS, I’m very interested in watching a documentary about that influence, (pro or con.)
7 o’clock on 7.1, this Thursday!
#4 by brewski - November 12th, 2009 at 20:53
I wrote a fairly lengthy personal story about my experience with the wall. But either we are having technical difficulties, or someone is blocking me. To quote Frank Burns “I’m not paranoid, it’s that everyone is against me.”
#5 by Larry Bergan - November 13th, 2009 at 01:55
Sorry, Brewski:
I tried to find your post in the spam filter and couldn’t find it. I found a couple of small comments which I released though.
#6 by brewski - November 13th, 2009 at 03:34
Thats too bad. I was in Berlin in 1985 and had some good stories. If I have some more coffee and get motivated I might rewrite it.