Anniversary of The Fall of the Berlin Wall - part 1

Regular readers will recall that I was stationed in West Berlin during the 1980's, during the Reagan administration. My colleagues and I were surrounded by the Berlin Wall there - more than 140 miles of it encircled us.

The culture of the time sometimes held that Berlin was the flashpoint that might turn the Cold War into World War 3 - we were constantly reminded of that fact.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Wall this month, I thought I might go through some old photos to see what I might find of the Wall as it stood back then, as well as of various memorial installations I or my friends have encountered. I will also try to recollect some thoughts about how I regarded the Wall back then.

Of course, to my colleagues who were there as well, you are welcome to use the comment section on the blog to share any thoughts you would care to. If you are reading on Facebook, I will copy comments I receive there into a future blog post over the next week or so.

The photos today are of the recently installed memorial at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. During the early part of my enlistment, this is where I received Russian language training.

Also, a note of thanks to my friend Yiming for sending these - he was at Monterey at the same time I was all those years ago.