BERLIN BEFORE DAWN or I'LL SEE YOU ONE CHECKPOINT CHARLIE AND RAISE YOU TWO PISSED OFF RUSSIANS WITH A MACHINE GUN

The underlying tension to my little excursion to Berlin goes back a few years before the actual trip. My first assignment was in the ASA, mid 70's in the Far East. It caused a 30 year hold on my travel. I was not allowed to visit or even fly over any communist countries. This put a major kink in my visit to Berlin. When I was young, my days in the Agency rarely crossed my mind, now they rob me of my sleep.


The Berlin trip started out exactly like all my other little European expeditions, a drinking buddy saying let's go. Back in the day, the only way to get to Berlin was across East Germany on the Duty Train affectionately called the Freedom Train.


The first hurdle I had to surmount was to come up with a "set" of Flag Orders. This was a very pretty piece of paper with a large American Flag on it so the Russians would know just who they were screwing with, it's a John Wayne by god and don't you forget it. One of our drinking buddy's just so happened to be in charge of said papers. However, due to the aforementioned traveling problem of mine, no one really wanted to chance 10 to 15 years in the Leavenworth prison just so I could drink some beer and watch nudie shows in Berlin. So, the guy says, I keep those papers in my bottom left hand drawer, sometimes when I go to the toilet at 0915, I forget to lock my desk. Nuff said.


My next bright idea was in order to cover every one's ass should this whole caper go sour, I would do all the sets of Flag Orders needed, that way it would appear that only I knew they were ahh "stolen". So I did. They looked great.


Traveling as usual, me, the asshole, a six footer with black hair down past my ass, a tall blonde guy from Michigan and a short black girl from Alabama, all drunks. They had faith in me, after all, I was on the Generals staff, what could possibly go wrong.


We arrived in Frankfurt by mid morning. Now the Freedom Train could only cross East Germany during the hours of darkness and all shades must be kept completely drawn, the Russians were adamant about Americans not peeking at them and their stuff.
We languished away the day in and around the train station, not the nicest part of Frankfurt but not bad. We piled up in a corner and slept through to early evening. We awoke sober, hungry and in foul moods. Afraid to leave the train station for fear that this unknown darkness hour would come and the train leave without us. We reasoned, poorly so, that fruit was an excellent breakfast food and wine was nothing more than liquid fruit. We drank a hearty breakfast.
We had brought more clothing than usual, our friend had told us to take a full set of dress greens. Normally we only packed just enough to keep the wine bottles from clanging against one another. Evidently, along with "official" Flag Orders some sheet of necessary information, protocol if you will, would have been included. We took it for granted, as with our other outings, the we were supposed to be alcohol free, inside and out. This just didn't work out for us, so we always brought enough to share and packing our full dress uniforms made the volume of booze packed skyrocket. We were set.


Some where around eleven at night the train began to board. We had a lovely stateroom and we continued to enjoy our breakfast. In the room next to us a gaggle of zoomies (Air Force) had settled in. Zoomies always seemed to behave themselves and this used to piss us off a little. We introduced ourselves and before the train left the station we had them well on the way to passing out drunk. At midnight the train pulled out of the station. Our "papers" had passed their first perusal by official eyes. All was well.


Tiring of the zoomies company, we returned to our compartment and our idle hands quickly found trouble. We just couldn't understand what there could possibly be that one could view from a speeding train that the Russians were hiding. So we decided to see for our selves. I think back on it now and wonder if we had thought to turn off the lights before we opened the shutters if we would have gotten away with it. It could also have been giving them the finger, a lot. Who knows, it was great fun, while it lasted. There were soldiers standing in the middle of seeming no where, all dressed up just like in the movies, stationed I guess, within eye sight one after the next on down the line. Just standing there watching the Freedom Train pass in the night. We gave them the finger, waved, and laughed and laughed.


Our first clue came with the sound of screeching brakes. We had been on many a train and this was no normal stop. The Russians were boarding our buddy the Freedom Train. Was this normal? or were they looking for three ignorant assholes that looked a lot like us?


We quickly did the only thing we could think to do. We became different assholes. We dropped down the top bed and put the little black girl in, then closed it up tight. One asshole down, two to go. We can hear people, angry people, speaking Russian. I put my hair down the inside back of my T-shirt, we had pulled off our outside shirts and hid them in the bed with our friend. Then, Mr. Michigan and I got into a compromising position. When the door to our compartment was jerked open, it was quickly closed again. The zoomies were questioned a bit. It seemed like it took forever before that train started again and we got our friend out of the bunk. She was kind of blue, seems there wasn't a lot of air all squished up. We behaved and made it to Berlin just before dawn. Later, she would accuse us of trying to kill her with a bed, she stayed pissed about this for months.


I think it would be nice to end my story here. I could, if I learned lessons easily but the vast alcohol consumption had already rendered me with a severe learning disability and I was on the fast track to standard retardation.


Our first day was spent seeing the daytime sights of what underbelly we could wander into. There were swastikas everywhere, we took pictures of them. It was numbing. Right or wrong, I blame the violence of my childhood directly on the Nazi's. My father never quite recovered from his time in the prison camps and died twenty years before his time because of them. I am infuriated, deep in my soul by any sign of the Third Reich. My friends were equally angered and stunned. So, we were pissed off at the Germans in general. That night we went to a stage show in the French Section where our little black friend was put into a magic box and swords were pushed through. Later we agreed that if we hadn't been so drunk we would have tried to rescue her and really fucked up the magician.


Somewhere in our brain damaged minds we decided that we had made it this far, survived the train being boarded and a magicans magic stabbin' box, there was no reason why we shouldn't just waltz straight into East Germany and look the Russians right in the eye. Those East Germans were all the time getting killed trying to get out of there, we'll go in and give it a good "look see".


The next day we donned our dress greens and headed for Checkpoint Charlie. We were clean and sober and all shiny and pressed. We handed over our Flag Orders to the Head Military Policeman in charge. He looked at my orders with puzzlement, then back at me, then back at the orders. I could feel the sweat between my boobs being driven on by my pounding heart. He said there was a missing paragraph at the bottom of the orders. Before my dry mouth could respond, he added, "Hey, I know you." I had no idea who this fuck stick was but right then he was a long lost buddy. At that moment in time I was thinking what a great damn idea the Army has by having us wear our first name on our collar and our last name on our shirt. It made it really easy to call him by name and pretend to remember everything he was saying. "No problem he says" and sticks each set of Flag Orders into his handy dandy typewriter and fixes them for us. We slid through Checkpoint Charlie like cat shit on a hot tin roof.


East Germany was very different, eerie even, almost deserted. No one and I mean NO ONE looked us in the eye. There was no pleasant conversation with vendors, nothing. I vaguely remember freaking a little when Mr. Michigan pulled out a camera and started taking "covert" pictures. Cameras were forbidden. We had been told that Russians were tasked to follow all Americans and watch them while they were on the East side. We drank a little, then a little more. Sitting in a small beer garden, Mr. Michigan, our human weather vane and always the picture of calm, went ape shit, completely, whole heartily, ape shit, and in fluent German while he was at it.


When the glasses and pitcher when crashing to the floor, my brain lied and told me some odd accident has occurred. Dumbfounded, I looked around to see what could be causing all the broken glass. Mr. Michigan was standing waving his arms and cursing in German. I picked up gestapo and green beer and the reality that my buddy was bustin' up a Russian bar hit me like a shit filled sock in August. My Neanderthal instincts of fight or flight kicked in. I threw down every Duetch mark in my pocket and started dragging my friend out of the bar. By the time we made it back to the Russian side of the check point we were all dazed but relieved not to have been stopped or arrested.


Now when we went in, the excitement of making it through had made us too giddy to look up and see the Russians in their cozy little machine gun nest, but it was very clear now as they had refused to release the electronic lock so we could pass through the cage and into the West. Time froze, the Russians rotated the gun down on us. We waited, three of the soberest son-of-a-bitches on the face of the earth, then we waited some more. Then the hard buzz of the gate lock being released and just as quickly locked again. We waited again hands on the gate waiting for the buzzer to sound so we could push it open. Time passed, we let go of the gate and just then the buzzer sounded again and again locked before it could possibly be opened. Were they waiting for some official to come and take us into custody or maybe, just maybe, THEY WERE FUCKING WITH US. The buzzer game and machine gun aiming went on for what seemed like forever. Then a good long buzz and we were through. When we got to the other side one of the cops at the check point asked us what was up. We just shrugged and played stupid, which was a pretty natural state for us.


A couple of years ago, the US Army was giving out medals for all those folks that served during the "Cold War". You just had to send in for it with some minor little documentation. I did not put in for one.