Charles H. Bradley III: Echoes of history were heard as 'Blue Wall' came crashing down on Nov. 5

To The Daily Sun,

As a sophomore spending a college year abroad (1967–68) a friend and I thumbed around Europe during our free time and eventually visited Berlin. At the time the Berlin Wall separated East and West Berlin. However, westerners were allowed to visit East Berlin with “day passes” issued by the German Democratic Republic, the Joseph Stalin installed government of East Germany.

My friend and I obtained passes and went into East Berlin. We encountered two young East Germans. They repeatedly requested we exchange our dollars with them. Believe me when I say, my friend and I were thumbing because we had extremely limited funds.

Nevertheless, we exchanged $10 American each for East German money. When returning to the East Berlin checkpoint that day, we tried to exchange the East German money back to American dollars. The checkpoint guards detained us and interrogated us separately for three hours. To our relief, we were finally released, avoiding a possible international incident and probable dismissal from our university.

John F. Kennedy in a famous speech at the Berlin Wall on June 26, 1963, proclaimed, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Ronald Reagan, also at the Berlin Wall, against the advice of all his advisors on June 12, 1987, demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” We all know what happened.

Let me assure everyone that JFK and Reagan never dreamed that some American politicians would try to build a so-called “Blue Wall." Nevertheless, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and the Demolitioncrats tried to build a “Blue Wall” in certain American states to win the 2024 election.

MAGA Americans led by Donald Trump repeated the accomplishments of JFK and Ronald Reagan and tore down that “Blue Wall” on Election Day. The echoes of history were heard as the “Blue Wall” came crashing down on Nov. 5, 2024.

Charles H. Bradley III

Laconia