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Started By
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Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:27 am to East Coast Band
Media was out of it 100 years ago. There were muckrakers, etc., in the early 1900s, but it's been shite. Every article on the webz is just a reaction video in text. No originality.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:55 am to jlovel7
West Berlin was an interesting territory in the late 80s as detente was taking hold. Especially in 1989 one fateful November night.
I was in West Berlin doing recon work staying tdy at the Army post a couple times.
West Berlin was like a fairly typical Western European town while east Berlin definitely wasn’t.
As a US service member you kind of has you choice of women but you also had to be very selective because the espionage activity was crazy high.
Until 1986 the Belle was a great place to hang out and drink and pick up very friendly German women. Ghadafi screwed that up and it was pretty much off limits after 1986 for our group.
Kennedy had nothing to do with the airlift. Hell, he wasn’t even a senator back then.
I was in West Berlin doing recon work staying tdy at the Army post a couple times.
West Berlin was like a fairly typical Western European town while east Berlin definitely wasn’t.
As a US service member you kind of has you choice of women but you also had to be very selective because the espionage activity was crazy high.
Until 1986 the Belle was a great place to hang out and drink and pick up very friendly German women. Ghadafi screwed that up and it was pretty much off limits after 1986 for our group.
Kennedy had nothing to do with the airlift. Hell, he wasn’t even a senator back then.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 4:44 am to SpotCheckBilly
quote:
We started the Berlin Airlift under JFK
No, not under JFK.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 5:03 am to jlovel7
I went to east and west Berlin befor the fall of the wall.
West berlin had battle star golactica and tempelhof.
East belin had buildings with holes in the walls from WW2
Drove thru check piont charley in dress uniform.
West berlin had battle star golactica and tempelhof.
East belin had buildings with holes in the walls from WW2
Drove thru check piont charley in dress uniform.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 6:24 am to jlovel7
I traveled to Russia in the summer of 1990 and traveled through Berlin. West Berlin was nice, East Berlin was a shite hole …third world country type hell hole.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:11 am to jlovel7
I have a friend who has lived in Germany about 60 of his 80 years on earth. He married a German woman while stationed in Germany and stayed most of the time. He has told me stories about visiting her family in East Germany where he, as an American Citizen, could clear customs in Berlin in 30 minutes when it took his wife and her family up to a couple of days. He claims the USSR knew as much about him as he himself knew and that is why...I can't speak to that but you'd think they'd know his wife's family also, but it could have just been harassment. Anyway he would go to a brothel (supposedly with wife's knowledge) while waiting for his wife and family LOL...and stay in beer gardens when done in the brothel. He loved to visit the inlaws in east Germany LOL.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:18 am to TBoy
Aren’t you a big communist guy?
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:20 am to SpotCheckBilly
quote:
We started the Berlin Airlift under JFK
Missed it by about 13 years.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:20 am to Pepperoni
quote:
Like day and night, literally, going from a world of color to grey, black, white
You can see the effects to this day on Google Earth....west Germany is a spider web of roads and rail lines, past the line it looks like the western half of the US...I paid reunification tax when I worked in Germany (1% I think) and the west Germans were PISSED about paying it. There is also data to support the idea that people born and raised in East German are a severe drag on the German economy....most Germans I know wish the nation had remained as it was. Berlin of course is the outlier...
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:20 am to jlovel7
California mins pride
Posted on 6/15/23 at 12:48 pm to stout
quote:
Missed it by about 13 years.
Yep, you guys are right. As Maxwell Smart used to say, "Missed it by that much."
It was Truman...doh. was thinking of JFK's "Berliner" quote.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:03 pm to SpotCheckBilly
quote:
was thinking of JFK's "Berliner" quote
Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:08 pm to TBoy
quote:
There was a single rail line for western visitors to West Berlin.
I took that train in 1976, it was pretty weird to be in Berlin and see some of the Soviet side as well. Berlin was nothing like it is now. There were still lots of bombed out large buildings along the wall (museums, government buildings, not really sure). The center of the city wasn't bad but wasn't as vibrant as other European cities we visited. We did a tour of East Berlin, our Soviet guides took us down the best streets in East Berlin and to a Soviet WWII memorial where we watched the goose stepping changing of the guard. And they served us some of their soda which they were proud of. It had huge bubbles and was noxious. We weren't impressed with E. Berlin, it was more a comical tour than anything. The Checkpoint Charlie museum was much more interesting then because it was very real. At Checkpoint Charlie we (teenagers) fricked with the guards on the towers along the wall who were watching us with binoculars. We rolled up our fists and put them to our eyes and looked back like we had binoculars as well. The train ride was interesting as well, lots of guard towers along the line to keep E. Germans from making it to the train. And there were lots of ancient steam locomotives in use.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:08 pm to OWLFAN86
quote:
And the Berlin Airlift was way before JFK
Likely Eisenhower.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:13 pm to aTmTexas Dillo
quote:
Likely Eisenhower.
Okay so it was Harry Truman.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 1:48 pm to jlovel7
A friend of mine and I toured Europe a few years before the Berlin Wall came down. We took a train from Hamburg in West Germany to Berlin. When we got to the border of East Germany, several border guards with German Shepards and automatic weapons boarded the train and inspected everyone’s papers/passports. No big deal.
Berlin was bustling and vibrant. At night, we’d see lots of US military guys out having a good time. I remember a place called “Club 1776” or something like that. Frisked for weapons at the door and the clientele was overwhelmingly servicemen.
We walked across the border after stopping in at Checkpoint Charlie to see if we’d be safe, what not to do, etc. I remember an American and a British soldier there and they joked around with us and said no worries as long as you get back before the border closed to pedestrians at 11:00pm (maybe?).
Walking through the Customs kind of place to get into East Berlin was a trip but they didn’t seem to care too much about us. The first block of buildings along the Wall were vacant, by design, to thwart tunnelers, we were told. We went to the Brandenburg Gate and asked a local to take our picture but he didn’t want to have anything to do with us. We ate at a cafe and my only memory of that was how awful the Cola they served was.
We were surprised at the number of US military guys who were sightseeing there, too. They said that you could get the best air guns in the world there for cheap so go buy one and mail it back home. We didn’t. I remember seeing a memorial for the “victims of colonialism and capitalism “ or something like that.
We cut it close getting back across the border in time. The difference was evident - more lights, activity, etc in the West.
Berlin was bustling and vibrant. At night, we’d see lots of US military guys out having a good time. I remember a place called “Club 1776” or something like that. Frisked for weapons at the door and the clientele was overwhelmingly servicemen.
We walked across the border after stopping in at Checkpoint Charlie to see if we’d be safe, what not to do, etc. I remember an American and a British soldier there and they joked around with us and said no worries as long as you get back before the border closed to pedestrians at 11:00pm (maybe?).
Walking through the Customs kind of place to get into East Berlin was a trip but they didn’t seem to care too much about us. The first block of buildings along the Wall were vacant, by design, to thwart tunnelers, we were told. We went to the Brandenburg Gate and asked a local to take our picture but he didn’t want to have anything to do with us. We ate at a cafe and my only memory of that was how awful the Cola they served was.
We were surprised at the number of US military guys who were sightseeing there, too. They said that you could get the best air guns in the world there for cheap so go buy one and mail it back home. We didn’t. I remember seeing a memorial for the “victims of colonialism and capitalism “ or something like that.
We cut it close getting back across the border in time. The difference was evident - more lights, activity, etc in the West.
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:05 pm to BobABooey
Good stories… all I know is that The Scorpions ended the Cold War
Posted on 6/15/23 at 7:21 pm to jlovel7
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Posted on 6/15/23 at 8:03 pm to jlovel7
I had a friend (RIP) who was an Army helicopter pilot when the wall went up. Each night after dark, he would hop in his helicopter, fly into east Germany and bring back our people who had been marooned on the wrong side of the border. Really dangerous flying assignment and he would with no fanfare, tell me stories that convinced me what a real hero he was. He was a retired Bird Colonel when I knew him.
He and his wife lived in an apartment in West Berlin, and he slept during the day and went to work each night. There was a guy who tried to talk to his wife about what her husband did when she was at the laundromat. The second time it happened she told him when she got home and he made a phone call then told her the guy was a Russian spy. The next day, the guy was found dead down in front of their Apartment.
Each afternoon he would go to the base and they would show him on their maps where he was to fly to and then after dark, he would fly away, zig zag around for a while, and then slip across the border at treetop level, land on an empty field and pick up two or three people, sometimes an entire family with husband, wife and a couple of kids. I think he made 40 something flights across to pick someone up before they stopped.
He later attended war college with Colon Powell. He loved Colon, who he said was the hardest working officer in the US Army.
He and his wife lived in an apartment in West Berlin, and he slept during the day and went to work each night. There was a guy who tried to talk to his wife about what her husband did when she was at the laundromat. The second time it happened she told him when she got home and he made a phone call then told her the guy was a Russian spy. The next day, the guy was found dead down in front of their Apartment.
Each afternoon he would go to the base and they would show him on their maps where he was to fly to and then after dark, he would fly away, zig zag around for a while, and then slip across the border at treetop level, land on an empty field and pick up two or three people, sometimes an entire family with husband, wife and a couple of kids. I think he made 40 something flights across to pick someone up before they stopped.
He later attended war college with Colon Powell. He loved Colon, who he said was the hardest working officer in the US Army.
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