Larry Russell Johnson
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
Regarding U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez comparing President Trump’s border wall with the Berlin Wall only confirms her lack of historical accuracy, and her willingness to mislead the public to gain votes.
“The Berlin Wall, guarded by soldiers on the East’s side, was a way to block the East Germans from fleeing communism to west Berlin and West Germany, a free and Democratic country. Multiple people were shot by the soldiers in their desperate efforts to escape East Berlin.” — Lukas Mikelionis/Fox News
When I was in the military from 1975-77, I was stationed in Fulda, Germany at Headquarters, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, just a few miles from the East German border. Our job was to monitor the East German border fence, which ran the length of both free and Communist-held Germanies. Unlike a regular chain-link fence it was a flexible steel mesh similar to scissors which would clamp down on fingers from the weight of the person climbing the fence, along with cone-shaped mines on the fence which fire shotgun pellets toward the climber, including dog runs, guard towers and anti-vehicle ditches to stop tanks from crossing the border from the East German side. I remember Christmas Eve when a father and son climbed the fence and one was killed by a mine.
President Trump’s has an idea to build a border fence between the United States-Mexican border to deter illegal immigration, terrorism, human trafficking, and drug smuggling. This plan would work as a broader strategy to control our borders, ports of entry, airports and sanctuary cities. In 2009 I lost my cousin Beverly Duffield, age 74, who was struck and killed while riding her bike in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by an undocumented immigrant with a prior criminal record, who has been arrested on a felony complaint of leaving the scene of a fatal accident also faces the possibility of a manslaughter charge.
“People who compare the U.S.-Mexico border wall to the Berlin wall failed of slept through the easiest history classes in middle school and high school.” — Unknown