and draconian in its reach, crowding out and/or imprisoning those who would contradict Marxist orthodoxy and seeking to expand to the entire world, whether that world wanted it to or not.

As such, the Communist advance demanded a strong and credible pushback response from those opposed to it, and in part to that end following new developments at Berlin, Battery A of the Stanley National Guard was activated along with others to put the West on heightened alert, heading out to Fort Lewis, Washington.

“We were called up on the 1st of October,” Scott Mason said of Stanley’s National Guard unit, with Diane Weggen helping to explain the larger context in a tribute entitled “A Ready Warrior.”

“Berlin was in the middle of East Germany and the Berlin Wall completely surrounded the western sector of the city,” she said, her husband Don being among those called up with Battery A. “West Berlin was free, along with all of West Germany, and was helped by the Allies to maintain independence from the Soviet Union. West Berlin was accessible from West Germany by highway through gates in the wall.”

The Wall started construction in 1961 in response to East Germans seeking to escape to the West at Berlin, with initial construction taken as a provocative measure by the West. The East as it turned out, was trying to keep its people in as they looked on a prosperous outside world. So what of Fort Lewis Washington and Battery A? Occasional dispatches to the hometown newspaper kept residents filled in. Come Christmas it was field exercises at Washington, with kudos from Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, who visited the base, recording his impression.

“The artillerymen under your command have a strong, constructive, and aggressive attitude toward their training and toward the Division," he said of field exercises. "I not only saw a number of your men on the firing range, but I also spent the night with a Mosinee outfit who have about as strong a morale as I have seen anywhere in any man’s army.”

As time went on, the true purpose of the Berlin Wall as a defensive measure to keep people in rather than anti-Western aggressive move by East Germany became more apparent, resulting in the return home of Battery A and others. Then in 1989, the unexpected happened: the Berlin Wall put up in 1961, was torn down, with sledgehammers – the spectre of Communism in retreat from Europe.

“Don & I could hardly believe the news in 1989 that the Berlin Wall was coming down,” Weggen said. “That was something we believed would never happen during our lifetimes.”

In the end, the defeat of Communism in East Germany was due in part, to resolution showed by men like those of Stanley’s Battery A.

On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet Union's flag, came down, the spectre defeated in Europe.