Veterans Day 2007

Please pardon the interruption. Today is Veterans Day in the United States and I want to take a moment of your time to do a little reflecting.

It was a little more than 22 years ago that I stepped off the bus at Fort Benning, Georgia. There I was 18 years old fresh out of high school and about to embark on something that I thought I knew something about what I was getting myself into but in reality had no idea. See, my father was a career Army man and we traveled to bases over the eastern part of the U.S., so my brothers and I had the privileged life (if you can call it that) of being considered military dependents. Well, let me tell you being a Soldier and being a dependent of a Soldier are two different things. The two are like polar opposites. Still I knew from an early age that somewhere/sometime in my life the military was a career option. So I opted for the College Fund, which at time was going to payout almost $50K for college. Not a bad deal.

From July 1985 to October 1985, I was in the middle of the most humid place on the planet. Basic Training was conducted in what seemed like 1000 degree temperatures, always on the go, little to no sleep, and (I kid you not) even ate GREEN EGGS (yep, the same green eggs of Green Eggs and Ham fame). Well, in the end I was a certified PROFESSIONAL SOLDIER...I was an United States Army INFANTRYMAN, but I was not unique in the sense that I was the only Infantryman. On October 13, 1985, I acquired 114 more brothers and from that day on I feared no man on the planet except for another Infantryman, for I knew exactly what an Infantryman was capable of.

After graduating Basic and Advanced Infantry Training, my first assignment took me to the last divided city in the world. BERLIN, West Berlin to be exact. It was here that I was a member of the most unique unit in the history of the United States Army: the Berlin Brigade.

It was in the Berlin Brigade, that I served at the tip of the spear of the free world, as on a daily basis we stood toe-to-toe with our Cold War adversaries, the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact. In 1985 to 1987, if anything were to happen it would be in Berlin first. The running joke among the Allies (British, French, and U.S.) that if there was ever a war, a sign would be hung outside the Berlin Wall that read "Stalag Berlin" and the Warsaw Pact would bypass the city. However, the humor only went so far, it was in Berlin that I realized that should there be a war, it was these men that I was going to die next to, because we knew fully well that being 110 miles behind the Iron Curtain no one was going to relieve us in a time of war. Though there was never a war, some very great friends were lost. Friends like J.R. Morast (we were in the same Basic Training & AIT unit) who died coming off guard duty and Kenneth James Gibson, died coming home for Christmas on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, who unknowingly became one of the first casualties in the early days of what was to eventually become the War on Terror. Two others; Kenneth Ford and James Goins died in the La Belle Disco Bombing. Knowing they and too many others like them are in a better place now, we persevered and soldiered on. Those that knew them and served with them are honored to have called them Brothers, Brothers-in-Arms.

However, it was not all doom and gloom. In Berlin, I had the privilege of not only working and living among some of the finest soldiers in the United States Army, I also got to live and be among the citizens of Berlin, the finest people on the planet. I never met a citizen of Berlin, that did not appreciate the Freedoms, we (the Allies) helped give them so many years ago. No matter what their political opinions were, they were happy to be Free enough to voice those opinions. Just on the other side of the Berlin Wall, the citizens of East Berlin saw themselves as pawns in a game of politics and yearned for the day that they were able to have their voice heard without fear of intimidation or imprisonment. Little did any of us know, at the time, that the end of Berlin Wall was not that far off.

When my time to leave Berlin came, I was sad in the fact that a chapter in my life was coming to an end. I was sad of the people that I was leaving behind and sad for those that were never coming home. Still all-in-all, being in West Berlin in the 1980s was the greatest adventure a young soldier could ever undertake. It helped shape the path that the rest of my life was going to take. To this day, I still pay homage to the Professionalism that the Berlin Brigade instilled in everyone whoever served. Above all, everyday I am grateful to have served with the finest soldiers in the world in the most unique City on the planet during the most unique time in the history of the planet.

Thank you for your time and THANK A VETERAN,
David Guerra
U.S. Army Infantryman
Berlin Brigade, West Berlin 1985 - 1987