Brother Clifford served in the US Army in the 1970s, when the Berlin wall divided Germany into East (Communist) and West (Free). The capitol of Germany, Berlin was also split into a Communist side and Free side and sat inside the Communist part of Germany.
Brother Cliff’s plane would land him in Free Germany (mainland), and he would have to take a train to get to Berlin. These train rides were scheduled for night, and all the curtains had to be drawn. One time, brother Cliff tried to raise one of the curtains to see what the big deal was, and he found himself looking at the business end of a gun barrel. He decided that he didn’t really need to know what the big deal was after all.
From free Berlin, brother Cliff would often cross over into Communist territory via Checkpoint Charlie. He noted that on the Communist side, they had a glamourous street, Karl Marx Strauss, where all the tourists were taken and limited to. It was nice and polished. But, bother Cliff would often have his own rental car, and he would leave this shiny street, and found the story outside of this thoroughfare was quite different. Outside of the showy Karl Marx Strauss, there was poverty, oppression, a destitute people.