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After kicking around for a couple of years after high school, Ron Potter decided to join the Army and get his military service over and done with. It was the dawn of the 60s, the height of the Cold War, and the Soviets were giving the US a hard time over Germany. “It was the military hotspot in the world at the time,” recalls Ron, especially Berlin. That was ground zero.
And that was where he was sent.
Ron’s unit, the 6th Infantry Division, was stationed along the political borderline between the Soviet Union and the US occupied areas of Europe—the fragile thin buffer between the communists and the “free world.” At least that’s how we thought of it back then. One false move on the border—later to become the Berlin Wall—and the world would erupt into WWIII.
Soldiers on both sides pointed their tanks at each other. “We knew we wouldn’t survive any of it,” Ron admits. “It would have been total annihilation. But we were there as a show of force anyway?”
Now the Berlin Wall has come down and Germany is unified. “It’s hard for me to imagine it,” Ron says. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
On May 16, 2015, we filmed our 7th episode of Veterans and Their Stories at MCA-TV in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. On this day, WWII veterans Jack Morrow (Marines) and Ron Potter (Army) joined us to share their stories of serving in the military.
Veterans and Their Stories is a production of Moon Township Community Access Television. The talk show features interviews with veterans from Moon Township and surrounding communities. Veterans and Their Stories is hosted by Moon Township resident Beth Feather, who is also the MCA-TV community producer for this program. This program is co-produced with the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh Oral History Initiative, in partnership with the Veterans Breakfast Club.