BERLIN
remember the wall was still up separating the East from the West. Germany was divided with East Berlin and West Berlin. It couldn’t have looked starker. West Berlin had shops, food, outdoor cafés, night clubs, bars while East Berlin, always looked like an overcast was upon them, all the buildings looked the same, no night life, the streets were empty as you looked at it from the distance, it looked and felt Cold even in the summer months.
My MOS (Military Occupation
Specialty) was Intel so for us, we couldn’t visit East Berlin without having a
chaperone, usually the Warrant Officer in charge of our area and we couldn’t go
with less than 5 people.
We would have to turn in our ID cards at the border
before being able to get pass the checkpoint and our bus would be searched going
in and returning. This was the rules of engagement for us. Entering into the
east my mind would wonder almost immediately as I stared at the Cold, Concrete
buildings without even paint on them, I would look for movement and it wouldn’t
be until we arrived to our specific location that we seen any form of life.
They had no cars, and I remember thinking, this is so strange, and it wasn’t
like they didn’t have a population.
One time on our trip over,
we had visited some shops on the main drag and I had already gotten onto the bus
and was patiently awaiting the others when this Old Woman, I would say in her
60’s (not old by our standards today) pierced her face around the corner from
the front of the bus stairs, crotched down and said to me, “take me with you”!
Chills run through my body as I write this and my eyes glaze over with tears.
My heart sank that day when amongst others we had to say “we can’t”.
This was
the moment I realized how lucky we were to be Americans, to be Free and this is
the moment when I really understood why I, we were there.
This is why today I push
back with my voice for now and many others fight back at the abuse of our laws,
because we know what not having freedom means, it starts simple, foods you can’t
eat, smoking, gun control, voting laws…it starts with One Person in Washington
who has decided that being and having Control is not only what he wants, but has
become such an obsession, that he alone will break every constitutional right
our Forefathers instilled in writing.
They instilled it because many of them
came to the United States to avoid unlawful persecution, unlawful mandates on
their lives, they wanted to be Free like the woman in East
Berlin.
We are not immune from having
a repeated moment in History like that seen with Hitler because the same way
Hitler came to power is the ideology of how this President is addressing our
Country….Divisiveness amongst the races and classes.
Rhetoric being spoken by
him or as the Irish say, a bunch of blarney just because he has figured out what
he needs to say at that very moment to convince you. Promises he makes knowing
he is lying.
If anyone reading this paper
has a chance to speak to those who have lived under any dictator, take the time
to listen to their story so you will begin to understand why today we must push
back, we must fight back the onslaught on our Freedom!
Mary Long
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