The Wall Crossers

September and War is Cold

Olivia's perspective

Every non-combat-arms soldier in the Berlin Brigade has two roles: the job we perform during normal operational hours (mine is as a records clerk in the Service Company, working with four other civilian women led by Staff Sergeant Ellis), and the role we take on during alerts.

Normally the Brigade is in Green alert status. If we go on Yellow, it usually means a drill, and we execute our drill protocol. We do this once each month unannounced ahead of time.

And if the alert is Red? That means the Reds (communists) have come through and over the Wall, and there is already fighting in the streets. In that case, most of us of the Berlin Brigade will be dead within twenty-four hours... But we will have served our purpose in the chain of events that, for certain, will have now ushered in World War Three. And at least one or two large cities in the United States and in the Soviet Union will have perished in nuclear catastrophe before cooler heads prevail.

I remember as a child being told in school drills that radioactive fallout would burn hot on skin—to always run quickly to a shelter to avoid this. Otherwise, to cover as best we could in a ditch. I knew my family were poor... we had no such fancy shelter. So in my neighborhood we children lived with this dread always present in the back of our minds.

War is cold.

Today, it is a Wednesday early-afternoon near the end of September, just five months after Anja and I first met. I am at my desk at work in the Air Ministry compound. I am joking with Barb when Sgt Ellis barges in and comes to my desk saying, "Yellow alert, Reary!"

My first thought is Crap! Now I will not be able to see Anja after work!

Sgt Ellis is already gone. It is a warm day, so I do not have a jacket—only wearing my summer khaki uniform, and the hideous black Army dress shoes that I detest! I have a small shoulder bag with two rolls of Life Savers Wint-O-Green mints inside along with: some girl things, like a yellow tie to put my thick but not-long-enough hair into a tiny ponytail, a compact, some nail polish (light pink), tissues, and small half-filled bottle of Chanel No. 19 with its refreshing and enticing balsamic-green scent. Also a small purse with my cash and Army ID, and a few other items. I won't have time to take it up to my room in the barracks—we are on alert!

I have an extra set of combat fatigues, socks and boots here at work, so I run to the washroom and quickly change.

Then, I leave hurriedly—go downstairs and run to the compound gate where already my Army bus to Andrews awaits. 30-40 of us get on and a jeep leads the way to clear us quickly through the streets. We arrive at Andrews in fifteen minutes.

I jog straight to the quartermaster on floor one of the building. Sgt Samoji—"Mogie"—is very busy dispensing equipment and alert-related supplies to all the troops who are arriving.

Mogie is our Company's supply Sergeant, although for much of the time I have known him he has been a Private, having been busted (reduced in rank) for flagrant drug use on the job (although it never affected his work).

Mogie is a bit scruffy in his dress code adherence. He has eyes deep as rich coffee, and skin, warm and inviting as autumn earth (Lebanese family I think he told me), big hands, with a slightly whispery voice, that being a bit of a surprise considering his imposing presence. Black hair intermixed with premature gray here and there. He is maybe 30 years old.

Mogie is one of the few veterans I know in Berlin who, like me, has also been in the hot war.

His is a quiet and almost forbidding disposition, although I never recall seeing him angry. He is just, well, toughened by his past. But he has a heart of gold, and I have always known if you ask him to do anything, you can count on him to do it.