When the Berlin Wall went up, it scared me. I was a postwar boy. Images of tanks facing off triggered fears of nuclear war.
When the Berlin Wall came down, I thought, "Who would think, in our lifetime?" After so many deaths and muscle and might and barbed wire and concrete, it seemed the Wall would prove indomitable, impregnable, intransigent. It seemed the Wall would be permanent, at least in our lifetimes.
The Wall came down 25 years ago today. May father died in May of 1989. I always thought that he, a soldier in World War II, albeit in the Pacific Theater, would be moved to tears by the Wall's collapse.
I've been to Berlin.
I've seen the remnants.
I've pondered the metaphors.
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