Checkpoint Charlie was located in the wall dividing East and West Berlin. The Berlin Wall was 96 miles long, dividing the Eastern-Russian section of Germany from the Allied-Western section of Germany. Checkpoint Charlie was an opening made famous by movies and the media, because it was a symbol of the Cold War. In going from the western side to the eastern side through Checkpoint Charlie, I was amazed at the security measures involved. There were dogs sniffing everything, large mirrors were put under the vehicles to make sure people or contraband was not being moved, everything was searched. The amazing thing, no one from the western side would possibly want to escape to the eastern side and escape from the eastern side to the western side was extremely rare.
Before the division of the city, these people, speaking the same language, enjoying the same history and culture, had fought together under Hitler. It was almost unthinkable that those captured and aligned on the eastern side with the Russians, where life was a bleak struggle for existence would “synapse” with the Russians against their countrymen on the western side of the wall. (Perhaps this was the case of the Stockholm syndrome, where captives become friends with the captors). Western Berlin, not that long after WWII, was one of the most prosperous places I have encountered, in spite of the damage of warfare. Of course, since the “tearing down” of the Wall in more modern history, after a time of cultural problems, the East and West Germans have formed a good union.
King Arthur, a legendary British leader, led the defense of England against the Saxon invasion. In one great battle, hundreds of men were lined up on Arthur’s side ready to go to battle, a short distance opposite, the Saxons were lined up ready for battle. Two front lines of healthy, well armed men who had no knowledge of one another, yet ready to kill each other with the command of their leader. Arthur, seeing the futility of such action, as well as the “waste of war” decided to have a meeting with the opposing commander. Sitting together with their aides, they had worked out a peaceable solution to their problem. When a poisonous snake attacked one of the aides, the aide took his sword to kill the snake. The sun reflecting off the sword was interpreted by both sides as the signal for war, a tremendous battle ensued and only four men of all the hundreds survived, hundreds were dead for no apparent reason.
There will be few survivors after a nuclear blast. All it will take is one deranged person near a switch on a nuclear silo, a coup d’éta in a third world country with nuclear weapons such as Pakistan. A nuclear cloud from just one weapon, and there are thousands, can wipe out civilization.
From ancient history to modern times, there have only been three years in the history of man when a war was not taking place. During the past 500 years, England has been to war 75 times, France has been to war 63 times and Russia 62 times. There was only 21 years between WWI and WWII. During that time, over 4,000 peace treaties were signed. It cost America $20,000 dollars for each opposing person killed in WWI, it cost America $200,000 dollars for each person killed in WWII. Can one even imagine what it is costing today for each person killed on the opposing side? And can one even think how much it is costing America for each of our finest killed, as well as the thousands who are wounded and must be cared for, for life?
During WWI, one newspaper had the following headline, “Great Battle Fought, Only One Man Killed.” It was only one man for the country, but it was a father, a husband, and a son for one family and a valued member of one community. The grief of such a loss, although only one, was almost unbearable for this one man’s four children, this one man’s wife, and this one man’s parents. Such is war. Many live with war everyday of their life, the blind, the amputee, the mentally inflicted.
You wear your uniform proudly, but you never recover from military service. In a VA hospital, I saw a large sign, “We honor our veterans”. Any veteran who has had the experience of the ineptness and callus service at a VA facility knows, that like the advertisements on TV and radio concerning veterans, that it is just so much talk, and talk is cheap. The only truth from any of these Public Service Announcements: “Freedom is not free.”
War has always been romanticized. In European history, very much like a family dispute, very few people realized that, WWI when England was at war with Germany, Queen Victoria’s grandson was the Kaiser of Germany. Conglomerate corporations on both sides, continued to do business with one another. People of wealth in countries at war just travel to expensive resorts in nations not at war and just “sit the whole thing out”. It has always been the sons of the disenfranchised who have paid the price of war.
Hypocrisy has always been a way of life. Military orders can be changed with the right political influence. I still remember the very handsome, articulate, wealthy, young doctor who had the political influence to get his orders changed so he got my assignment and I got his. In war, as in everything else, it is not what you know, but who you know.
I employed a housekeeper for a long time, a black woman, member of a large black church, she amazed me with details of church activity, the most gruesome. The pastor felt it was his obligation to visit the “widows” and other single women in the church and extend to them sexual attention.
Perversion has become glorified, particularly among young people. The glorification and acceptance of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, increased popularity of a president who did not hide his perversion, has led the entire nation down the path of promiscuity, permissive parenting, and total anti-Christian behavior. The everyday chant and dance, “anything goes” and so has gone the integrity of a blessed nation.
In 1949, a reporter asked Dr. Albert Einstein, “What is the future of nuclear energy?” He said, “If we are still around, ask me in 20 years.” The great preacher Dr. R.G. Lee said, “Most people want to live, but we have produced a generation intent on death.”
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