Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 6, 1990 TAG: 9005080496
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE: BERLIN LENGTH: Medium
Where guards once paced, ready to shoot anyone who tried to escape from East to West, strollers now push baby carriages and walk arm-in-arm as if this were a park in any city. In the East, vendors hawk bratwurst and drinks with all the practiced expertise of a veteran hot-dog man at the ballpark.
Already, it seems like ancient history that men and women cared so much about freedom that they risked their lives trying to scale the wall and beat the now-gone attack dogs to the other side.
Yet as one looks at the memorial crosses, one sadly sees that the last person to be killed trying to escape crashed in his hot-air balloon in March 1989. The last one was shot on Feb. 6, 1989. Chris Geoffrey was only 20.
As freedom roars like an express train through Eastern Europe, various government commissions work to repair an economy and a confidence that were destroyed by 40 years of imposed communism. Germans see the unification of East and West Berlin as a model for the reunification of East and West Germany.
Reunification will be easier for the prosperous West than for the East. East Berlin officials are borrowing West Berlin experts to help them create a free-market economy, which they must have to be compatible with the massive economic engine of the West.
Large amounts of aid will be needed to rebuild East Germany and Eastern Europe, devastated by war and devastated again by 40 years of communism.
What an incredible opportunity for the Peace Corps and other public and private agencies. As much as capital, East Europeans need expertise; men and women with the experience to show them how to run a country on the basis of capitalism and democracy. Students, retirees with business experience, missionaries and other volunteers will find a welcome mat ready to greet any who will help.
If rebuilding is successful, an economically and politically stable Europe stands to ensure that while the 20th Century will be remembered as a century of war in Europe, the 21st Century and perhaps beyond will be known as the century of peace and prosperity.
Visiting Berlin for the first time since a journey there 17 years ago, and observing freedom's forward march, reminds me of the sacrifices made by my father's generation in World War II. This was what they were fighting for: freedom for all of Europe and the preservation of freedom for America.
Their goal was delayed for nearly half a century. Many did not live to see the division of Europe, much less its ultimate liberation.
Nevertheless, the credit for the defeat of communism goes as much to those who fought and won the World War II as it does to their children, who fought and won the Cold War. Los Angeles Times Syndicate
by CNB