While watching Barack deliver his speech in front of the Victory Column in Tiergarten Park (and reading subsequent diaries) I was carried back almost 36 years to my first time in Berlin. I arrived there as a newly minted Airman First Class, assigned to Templehof Central Airport with the 6912 Electronic Security Squadron. If you are interested in these reflections follow me over the break....(as this is my first diary, please be kind to the neophyte).
At just 21 years old it was my first time in Europe and it was an education for a young country boy from North Alabama. I didn't speak German (not really required considering how many Europeans speak English). But I found the Berliners to be friendly, inquisitive and generally happy we were there (considering they were surrounded by many thousands of Soviet soldiers, airmen, tanks, aircraft). And there was still a tremendous amount of goodwill left over from the efforts of American and British airmen and soldiers and their acts of kindness and heroism during the blockade and during the years when the wall was under construction.
Colonel Gail Halverson, the noted Candy Bomber, was the Group Commander at Templehof in 1972,and in charge of Air Force personnel in Berlin. As a young airman I saw him several times, but never had the pleasure of meeting him in person. At Templehof you could walk by the momument which held Col. Halverson's transport plane (appropriately named the "Candy Bomber"), and just outside the oomplex stroll through the square where stood the Airlift Memorial, raised to those who participated in the greatest aerial achivement to resupply a city since the Second World War, erected by a grateful city. It is a rather simple, but striking memorial...a large gray concrete structure symbolizing the three "air corridors" the airmen were required to fly in by agreement with the Soviets.
Everyday I walked the rather towering and forbidding halls of Templehof (it was a massive structure which was originally intended as part of the "new" city of Berlin by Hitler) and compared my impressions of the german people I met with what I knew of WW II history and the history of Germany (WW II was a particular interest of mine and in Berlin I was sort of walking around in that history). I couldn't understand how the German people, people just like me and you, could have allowed Hitler to gain control of their country.
Germany during the second world war was a Fascist state. A German state controlled primarily by a unitary party (sound familiar) with more than strong ties to Corporate Entities (sound like anyone you know?). As I watched Obama and the thousands of Germans waving American flags, I marvelled at how lucky were the Germans (to be rescued from the folly of Fascism) and how lucky we were that we were able to prevail against formidable odds. It cost the world dearly. And I recognize that we sit on the same precipice today; with Corporations controlling much of our legislative agenda, the people's voice drowned out by money and the influence bought by money, and those in elected office who (for reasons known only to them) refuse to hold those in power accountable.
In 1972 I was proud to serve my country in Berlin; to be part of the several thousand American service men and women who were contributing to the freedom and security of "the Island City". In 2008, I look back on those years with nostalgia. Reliving the pride I felt then, and hoping beyond hope that Senator Obama can make me feel that pride again. I know the world thirsts for the America they knew then, rather than the America they know now.
When I consider what our government has sanctioned today, I cannot but draw comparisons to what I saw during those years I served in Berlin. A people thirsting for freedom and looking for America to show the way. Today, the people of Europe are still looking for America to show the way. Unfortunately, what we have shown them over the last eight years is that we can allow ourselves to be sucked down into the maelstrom of "security above all" and the abuses that type of thinking engenders.
Come November, I will cast my sacred vote, the vote I served my country to protect, for the "shining beacon of light" that is Barack Obama, and have confidence that he can once again restore the America that I knew in my younger years.
There is a saying: "He who fails to learn from history, is doomed to repeat it." We should all take those words to heart.