{"id":98782,"date":"2019-01-11T10:19:09","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T15:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=98782"},"modified":"2019-01-11T10:19:17","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T15:19:17","slug":"%ef%bb%bfcolumn-a-confederate-yankee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=98782","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffCOLUMN: A Confederate Yankee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Walls<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was not long after we arrived that we heard that the spot with the action was along Unter den Linden. So, of course, as soon as we got a bit of time off, we hounded the “old hands” who’d been there before us to guide us to that storied venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several of us hopped on a city bus and headed out. We soon found\nthe fabled strasse – and a surprising obstacle: The wall. The Berlin Wall, to\nbe precise. It cut right across the strasse. Tall, ugly and imposing, it had\nobservation stands at intervals along the side we were on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One could step up on the stand and look across into East Berlin.\nThere were guard towers on the other side, from which armed guards peered down.\nThere was no spot on that side of the wall that was not under direct\nobservation. I’d been there perhaps five months when we had an example of how\nseriously they on the other side took their duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one interval, the wall was right up against a West Berlin\napartment complex, which from the upper floors, residents could see down into\nthe other side. And one morning, someone attempted to get over to “our\nside.” He didn’t make it. He was shot, and lay on the ground writhing and\nmoaning. Enraged, occupants of that housing complex stormed out and knocked a\nhole in the wall, and prepared to retrieve the wounded man. Armed guards stood\nwith weapons at the ready, looking quite scared, as military police from\n“our side” quickly arrived and began ushering folks away from the\nbreach. A major international incident was avoided. A couple days later, word\non the street announced the would-be escapee had died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that were the end of the story, such an example might be used\nto support Trump’s demand for a new wall. “See, it works!” he could\ncrow. Except it didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few more days, we began serious discussion regarding the\nimperviousness of same. It was not. On several occasions, someone drove a heavy\ntruck right through. On at least one other, an athletic young person\npole-vaulted over. So the other side made adjustments, including raising the\nwall several inches. But people kept finding ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was an extensive subway system throughout Berlin. People\nwere able to get to the western side via those tunnels, and some simply dug\ntheir own tunnels. Point being, there was no way that wall was impenetrable. There\nhas never been a wall that couldn’t be breached, not the Great Wall of China, nor\nHadrian’s Wall, nor the Berlin Wall, nor any other. So, ignoring history,\nDonald Trump and some truly crackpot supporters demand a wall along our\nsouthern border \u2013 a very expensive wall \u2013 that also will not work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up along that border; Trump’s wall would be an immense\nwaste of money and personnel. He needs to back off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: William Mayers of Sullivan is a retired senior\nU.S. Army Corpsman. A certified healthcare professional since 1964, he holds\ntwo professional licenses, including that of Registered Professional Nurse\nlicensed in New York, Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana. He is the father of three\nand avid analyst of current events.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walls It was not long after we arrived that we heard that the spot with the action was along Unter den Linden. So, of course, as soon as we got a bit of time off, we hounded the “old hands” who’d been there before us to guide us to that storied venue. Several of us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23677,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-pHg","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/bill-mayers.jpg?fit=226%2C313&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}