24 years ago today---maybe it seems like no big deal now, but back then? The earth moved.

[DissidentVoice]

11. Quite well I remember it

My dad sat in his recliner wiping away tears.

He had been in the Army in West Germany when the first stages of the East being sealed off by the Soviets had started.

He said, "I never in my lifetime thought I'd see that damn wall come down. I remember once we were put on alert to go to Berlin because it seemed like the Russians were going to start something. We were a bunch of 19-20 year olds in the barracks shitting ourselves wondering what was going to happen."

My aunt lived in Alsace (part of France but ethnically German; a lot of my forebears came from there) in the mid-'60s and she and a bunch of the other family went to East Berlin. She told me it took three hours to get through Checkpoint Charlie, the East Germans confiscated most of the food they were taking to friends in the East and that once they did get through..."most of the rubble from the War still hadn't been cleaned up, no-one would talk to you in public, there was nothing to buy in the shops and we always felt like we were being watched."