the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

20 years seems like such a short time ago. Yet so much has changed.

I was involved in my university's German club then. There was much partying, but overall I would say most people in the department had a subdued, cautious optimism about how things would go & possible reuinifaction. One of our professors just happened to be in Berlin for a conference at the time and brought back chunks of the wall, which broke off easily since they poured a lot of sand into the concrete mix.

I was more happy about the end of the cold war. You whippersnappers don't know what it's like to grow up with the pervasive dread of the threat of nuclear war.

I was still in Russia... It was an awesome event -- in the original, non-teenified, meaning of that word. As in "awe-inspiring", and happy. I just couldn't believe it was happening. Everyone was like, YEAH BABY!! IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME!!! (only in Russian )

I think I was in a bar watching strippers and getting pissed.
Not really sure. It was the 80's, there was a lot going on. lol

Grad school is an odd choice of times to be thinking about babies, imho.

JFK - "Ich bin ein Berliner"
Reagan - "Tear down this wall"
0bama - "ummm ummm ummm ummm ummmm ummmm"

you forgot Bush:
Berlin Wall? The German asparagus are fabulous.

30 years

The infantry unit I was in did some duty guarding the border between east and west Germany.

) In an attempt to share the benefits of training in the "real world" environment of the border, V Corps initiated a program in 1973 that would allow mechanized infantry platoons to conduct border patrols. Several 8th Infantry Division units successfully tested the program in 1973, and the new training program was approved in December 1973. The first full training period was conducted between May and October 1974, with units from both the 8th Infantry Division and the 3d Armored Division participating. After completing border familiarization training, the platoons engaged in operations such as day and night patrols, as well as mounted, dismounted, and aerial patrols.

https://history.army.mil/documents/BorderOps/ch6.htm

Interesting reading the history, was in 8ID 1/39INF at the time,,we used call it the crazy 8....



8hrs for the time it took to get there.
the arrow, the shaft you got once there.

interesting times


When the wall came down I think I was in what was called, the Western corridor in Korea,
2ID, another unit guarding another border.

Memories of Germany, very nice people.

Very cold and wet most of the time in the field. We were stationed up in the mountains,
so cold during the winter we had to start our vehicles up every 2 hours to prevent the batteries from freezing 24 x7 .

Learned a lesson the hard way touching my rifle at the time in a the winter with a bare hand...
hand freezing to the barrel. very cold ,

Sounds like good times bro
X

we suffered a massive hurricane in my hometown in the carribbean the night of September 17th 1989
the wind meter flew off the weather monitoring station on a neighboring island - the last wind speed registered was 280mph plus

in November we were still without power
and did not get power back for about 6 or 7 more month

we had marshal law
and US troops driving hummers
and an enforced curfew -- where you could not be out after dark-- or else

to go grocery shopping --
there were armed guards and military on the roof of the store with automatic weapons
and they would only let a handfull of people in the store at a time...

so when the wall feel --
we were probably still cleaning up debris adn doing repairs...

no news at all...
except local announcements on the hand crank powered radio..
i dont remember any news of the wall falling when it happened...