More from: "My Time in Service." I was stationed in Germany and in the early seventies, well, even tho the war had been over for almost 25 years...there was still a lot of work going on. And all the young people (like me) were either born during the War, or shortly after. If you took the Night Train to Berlin and went to Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate...well you could pass War Damaged buildings. And the Gate (which was in East Germany) was all blasted and marked with burn, bullet holes and artillery blasts.
But when I got leave, and you could earn leave ...Admin Leave, by winning: Gunnery Championships, or PT Tests, or from outperforming other Platoons, or Squads on exercises. And I tried to win as many of those "Leaves" as possible. From three to ten days. And off I went. I was not a Barracks Rat.
Europe isn't like the USA, one train ride, and a few hours later you are in a country with different money, different languages, and every single border had Posts set up. But being Military...just my ID, and I was allowed in.
So my daughter asked me what was different when I went back 35 years later. And I showed her these two pictures I posted. And then a picture of Brandenburg Gate. And believe me, East Germany looked like the War ended a just a few weeks ago.
So first, Paris. I am nineteen in that picture by the Eiffel Tower. And, as you can see, there is nobody around me. In fact, I spent about a half hour before I could find someone who a) Spoke English, and b) could operate my polaroid. There were maybe twenty folks wandering around that entire long grassy mall to the tower. There were no tourists. Parisians don't go there....so it was almost all to myself. (On Week days...it did get a bit more crowded on the weekend. )
The second picture is me and my Kathy kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower...in 2005. And man, what changes.
First, in the early seventies, nobody spoke English. Everyone I saw was White, except for the Algerians. They were the biggest minority group back then. In the 2000's? Every flipping nationality, ethnic background, or race. China, Japan, Philippines, you name it...and English was everywhere. As were the crowds.
Where we parked our bus, there were sixty full time busses filled with tourists, and as one left, another one pulled in and dropped you off to walk over to the Tower. I would guess at any particular hour, there were several thousand folks wandering around. And all kinds of street vendors, marketers, scammers, and pick pockets. You might hand someone your camera for a picture, and they just take off with it. LOL
So English, Diversity, and the number of people were massive changes I noticed.
I think that is a testimony to just how wealthy the world has become- that ordinary folks go to foreign countries for a visit.
And the last picture is of Brandenburg Gate in the early seventies. And it was not restored at all. Just draped with big Hammer and Sickle flags. East Germany was dull and gray looking. And that was before the massive Soviet Union Apartment Blocks were built.
It wasn't just the Baby Boomers in America. The whole of Europe had "Boomers" of their own. Five guys from my Platoon married German girls. I stayed faithful to my girl back home. If you made German friends, it was just like back home. All the Dad's and Uncles fought in the war. And all the kids were the children of Veterans. With one huge difference. Almost every Mom, or Girl over 16, worked every day in the Rubble. Brick by brick, those women dug through bombed out structures to get the good bricks out. There kids played in the rubble on the side of the street. They built monuments to those women...as well they should have. We were spared that in the USA.
And Germany was still trying to figure out what kind of Government it was going to have. Lots of anarchists and gangs in the sixties and seventies. Again, echoing the things going on in the USA at that time too.
Some things change...some things just start up over again.