U.S. Army In Berlin: Checkpoint Charlie - The Big Picture

[@SmokeyBCN]

2 weeks ago I walked through checkpoint charlie around 10pm on a weekday night, it was eerily quiet, just a few tourists taking some photos and looking through the windows of the booth and the nearby museum. a place of immense history now changed almost beyond recognition, but like in the rest of the city, the signs of war and division are still there.

[@BestIsntEasy]

THOSE signs are still everywhere

[@Dickusification]

It's all for tourists

[@johnrogan9420]

Hometown...Detroit Michigan...that place needs a Checkpoint Charlie

[@chrismccaffery1091]

Nah screw that, our *Southern border* is exactly where we need a checkpoint charlie... badly!

[@pauleypavillion6088]

I was in the Navy from 1980 to 2000 and my first duty station was on an aircraft carrioer USS Nimitz CVN-68. Deployed twice with this huge ship and was told then when we deployed a Soviet Union submarine was following us all the time and ready to shoot tactical nuclear missle at us when nuclear war starts. I knew that if they did, we all on the ship would die instantaneously from a nuclear blast. From 1980 to 1989, that's how tense we were in the back of our mind of the ongoing cold war against the Warsaw pact nations.

[@gurrando3a6]

Lt.Thomas Bainbridge was my Platoon Leader in Co.A 3rd Battle Group of the 6th Infantry in 1961.He was a Class Act officer and it was an honor to serve under his command.

[@jamescarpenter1824]

Lt Bainbridge was one heck of an officer. He was my platoon leader.

[@ErnieRimrodt]

C-3-6 2/63 TILL 9/65 McNair Barracks 18 years old and 110 miles behind the Iron Curtain 5 trips to Wildflicken for live fire training, 4 tours at Spandau and 3 Armed forces Day parades marching 10 to 15 miles in down town Berlin. Cant forget Alert status when Kennedy was shot

[@JesseReith]

Thanks for all the great movies

[@Markbeb3]

I remember it like yesterday in 1979 and 81

[@geodes4762]

Was there in Berlin 11 years later during the summer of 1972 as a USMA cadet platoon leader assigned to B Company 3/6th Infantry Berlin Brigade at McNair Barracks in the Zahlendorf section of Berlin. Made the orientation trip into East Berlin and rode in a convoy from Checkpoint Alpha to Helmstedt, West Germany on our way to the Major Training Area in Hohenfels, West Germany. Was quite an experience for my first trip to Europe. One I will never forget and always treasure. It was a completely different and dangerous world

[@bluestar465]

I operated in the Clayallee Army Air Force Exchange Service as a supply officer for the PX. 1977-80.

[@ConfederceyCSA]

Ah the good old days having NATO & WARSAW PACT Troops at the ready with Tactical Nuclear Weapons.

[@thomasthomas2418]

The good old days....when America didn't take any shit. Now our president runs and cowers from a bunch of 7th century barbarians.

[@timetraveler1973]

was better than the weapons selling and money funnelling garbage they do these days. the 'cold' war was probably the most consequential in history.

[@johnrogan9420]

5:30 interview ...23 in 1961...84 now!

[@chetpomeroy1399]

Only five years earlier, Khrushchev was telling us "we will bury you."

[@cbm2156]

And now it seems more likely that the leftist will bury us, but they are our own home grown left.

[@R.U.1.2.]

He meant it politically and metaphorically, but it still carried an ominous tone, it sure worried me, at the time.

[@oldreliable40]

m-14 good weapon!!!!!

[@billhuber2964]

Damn good weapon !

[@birther1968]

A miracle war never started. Goes to the disciple of the soldiers.

[@txyz9294]

Show them as equipped with M14's, yet all through the film they are carrying M1's...Not another M14 seen throughout entire film.

[@jamescarpenter1824]

We did not get the M14 until later in 1961.

[@cbm2156]

In June of 1962, we used the M-1 Garand in Basic and the M-14 in advanced training. So at this time the M-14 was being phased in.

[@임동명-b2h]

670 찍고. 좋와요 찍고 😂반갑습니다. 박수를 보냅니다 ❤😂멸공으로 다스려라

[@corriemcnab730]

A good docu but for the pointless music intrusion.....

[@Michael_Hunt]

5:13 That dude is only 23?! People really did look older back then.

[@johnrogan9420]

Lt Bainbridge. Fully combat ready...soviet tank breaks through the Berlin Wall. ...run for your lives.

[@koinu2741]

Soviet tanks were lackluster as fuck bro

[@johnrogan9420]

Patton...Eisenhower. Montgomery.. Hitler's greatest Generals!

[@fabrizio1261]

Krass!

[@cthoadmin7458]

Good way to control civil disturbances now I guess: break out the tommie guns, fix bayonets and call in the tanks. Discretion gets the better of valour when tracked vehicles arrive.

[@gotwa229]

In retrospect, these over-the-top propaganda films are so campy and hysterically funny, what with the marching band scoring, it boggles the mind as it would impossible to envision Americans producing something like this nowadays, except for pure camp value.

[@NikovK]

What's propaganda or over-the-top about it. This happened. All they did was put music and narration to footage they didn't have on-site sound for.

[@gotwa229]

No shit sherlock. The point is not whether this happened or not. Read my comment. The point is that the production value of this campy piece of work is so low, it pales in comparison with the propaganda of today. Also, considering the fact that I walked through "Checkpoint Charlie" myself in June of 1990 -- just a few days after it was dismantled -- except, this time, I walked through it from "East Berlin" into "West Berlin" without nary a glance, let alone a single military guard or piece of equipment nearby, is further commenting how far we've come. Looking at this stuff now is almost hysterically funny how in the world we got our collective panties into a knot over basically nothing. Drama, drama, drama.

[@chetpomeroy1399]

At that time, the Cold War was getting very close to becoming a *HOT* war. The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted about a year later.

[@toosiyabrandt8676]

HI Don't forget this was an unprecedented situation! Both sides wanted Berlin for themselves. ' it's mine!' ' No it's mine, I got here first'.

[@patricksputnick5094]

@@gotwa229 Those were different times, and news-reels were different too, but since you were there you know it was no joke at that time. The dramatic music with the narration seems to go overboard when lookin at it today.

[@wolfedavid3700]

I saw a short timer pin...…..ooh....rah...…..

[@gentlyhug869]

Best Soldiers of the world?🤔

[@tommytrieu416]

*laugh in rice farmers*

[@jdmsurfer]

M14 is light? Lol oookkkk VA rates step guys back at 13:41 as non-service-connected. Tough luck kiddo.

[@CharlesCross-cl4jo]

B-3-6 1977-1979

[@docmarty809]

Lt Bainbridge looks like a robot reading a script. I guess their was cold war propaganda on both sides.

[@Dov_ben-Maccabee]

Send in the Marines!

[@theblackhand6485]

The best soldier. Well, so far as I can see in this movies the Russians could have make it to the Atlantic Ocean with ease.

[@chetpomeroy1399]

None of us would be here today if the Soviet Red Army were to do that.

[@grazzer1673]

The chap at 5:11 seems amiable enough, but Good Lord - do the Germans have any idea how TERRIBLY EAR-PIERCING they sound when speaking English? A bit of advice to all you Germans out there who fancy yourselves as English speakers: keep your voice as low as possible and NEVER speak in front of a microphone - CRINGE !!!

[@dilly2408]

Ze mikrofon vaz tu clouz tu mai maut herrrr amerikane

[@Eyyoh755]

Well, dude! Nothing sounds more eerie then an american trying to speak german: "Hello, Frowline! Oktoberfest! Do will ficken?"...😂

[@grazzer1673]

@Eyyoh755 Agreed - if you're a native English speaker and can't speak German without a pronounced English accent, then don't ever speak German in public. It makes me want to tear my ears off. The same goes native German speakers trying to speak English...not in public!

[@zygmuntb]

American Hollywood Nonsense