Thanks for that tremendous post, Ron.

Readers, contrast the words from this good man above with the following nonsense: http://www.redcounty.com/rockwell-watch-berlin-wall-lunacy

Stunning, no?

They can try all they like but the American people are not stupid.

We did not simply imagine the grave threat posed by the Soviets and no one at the time was just saying 'wait it out, they will just go away.'

There is nothing they can do to hide the fact that the fall of the wall was due almost solely to the strength of Ronald Reagan. We have not had one even remotely like him since.

This may be their worst Berlin Wall moment yet: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rania-al-abdullah/another-divisive-wall_b_347437.html

The Huffington Post, courtesy of Queen Rania, compares the Berlin Wall, which was meant to keep people in, to the protective wall being built between Israel and the West Bank, which is meant to keep those who would harm Israel out. That's some logic for ya!

I was a member of the USArmy and proud that John Kennedy was my commander-in-chief. I responded to his call to arms during the Berlin Wall Crisis that developed during the summer of 1961. By the Spring of 1962, I was deployed to the Black Forest area of southern Germany. By  fortuitous (to me) circumstances, I was given command of a 15 member unit tasked to make sure a number of tactical nuclear weapons could be relied upon if the situation needed them. I was waivered in time-in-grade to have the rank befitting this position.

During my time in Germany, Kennedy came to Berlin and issued the equally stirring, "Ich bin ein Berliner". Much, much beyond that, he faced one of the most definative show-downs in the 46 year stand-off, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The USSR ships turned around and carried their missiles back home.

While I was in Germany, I saw the fruits of the Marshal Plan. By 1961, Germany was well on the way to be the lynch-pin of the NATO alliance economy. In 1948, American resolve was challenged by the Russians blockading land routes in and out of Berlin. Harry Truman ordered the Berlin Airlift.

"The Berlin Airlift was a tremendous Cold War victory for the United States. Without firing a shot, the Americans foiled the Soviet plan to hold West Berlin hostage, while simultaneously demonstrating to the world the "Yankee ingenuity" for which their nation was famous. For the Soviets, the Berlin crisis was an unmitigated disaster. The United States, France, and Great Britain merely hardened their resolve on issues related to Germany, and the world came to see the Russians as international bullies, trying to starve innocent citizens." 

www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do

There were many, many more moves by American presidents that were woven into the fabric that ultimately brought the Berlin Wall down. Some from discredited presidents; Nixon going to China, Carter's CIA move in 1979 in Afghanistan:

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Ron, I present my response to you not as a political polemic. It seems unseemly to argue about who had the most important role in bringing down the Berlin Wall. There were literally millions of Americans who contributed to that feat. All our presidents made tough decisions during those 46 years.

And thank you for your service...

 Leland,

Thank you for the narrative. My intent was to counter the attempts by elitists to disavow America's role in its entirety; President Reagan just happens to be at the center of their target. To hear these elitists tell it, America's role in bringing down the Wall and ending the Cold War are incidental at best.