On the recordFebruary 2, 2023
I enlisted in the United States Army after high school and arrived in West Germany in the spring of 1989. The Cold War was at fever pitch, and at the Brandenburg Gate, President Reagan famously said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.'' On 9 November 1989, the East German people finally tore down their own wall; not Gorbachev, not America, not the West, but the people trapped on the other side of that wall. I was there that Thanksgiving in the heart of Berlin when I met with people experiencing their first hours of freedom. One man asked me, ``Is it like this everywhere?'' I thought he meant like Berlin, a big city. I am from western Ohio and a small town. He corrected me. He said, No, the stores are open at night, and there is fresh milk and everyone can go in? He had been told a lie that we were poorer in the West than they were, that only the elites could buy things, like the Communist Party officials. He was not alone. The wall had separated their Communists from our freedom and free markets. The flood of people was to the land of opportunity, not to the failed ideas of Marx and Lenin. The United States of America is worth saving. To do that, we must defend freedom and defeat socialism.
