 For Americans at work, an Army unit goes about its job, its tough, ceaseless and vital job of training in a field which could be any field in any part of the globe where America shows the flag and its armed forces join in the free world's defenses. But this field has a very special geographical location. Americans train here in full sight of the enemy's watchtowers. For this field is at the edge of a city whose outer perimeter is defined by barbed wire. And a cross whose face runs a wall of stone, dividing the city in two, etching it intelligently on the consciousness and the conscience of the world. And making the duty of American servicemen here a symbol of United States determination to stand fast in freedom's defense against all threats of communist aggression. The special circumstances and the meaning of duty in Berlin are made known early to troops serving here. As I stand here talking to you, we are being observed by a communist soldier from the tower to your direct front. Much of our training is in view of the communists. This is actually desirable. The result is that they know we are here and that we are prepared. Since you see, running along the border consists of four to five separate barbed wire fences preceded by a mine field. The communists built this barrier to keep their people from escaping to the free world. And it does just that. Down in the heart of the city, this wire fence is replaced by 27 miles of stone wall. 27 miles of education on the communist campaign to destroy freedom. Once you have seen that wall, you'll never forget it. There won't be any doubt in your mind as to why you were here. The communists have made it very easy to understand. No, you don't forget this wall. It stretches across Berlin like an open and festering wound. The city it divides covers more than 340 square miles, larger than Washington and Paris combined, and one quarter the size of the state of Rhode Island. It lies 100 miles from West Germany itself. As a result of special wartime agreements, the city has been jointly occupied since the end of World War II. The Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and France. Part of the city which lies in the Soviet sector is like the rest of East Germany, a closed communist state. West Berlin, for control purposes, is divided into sectors occupied by the three western powers. But for all practical purposes, West Berlin is one city, a healthy and thriving city, one of the loveliest in Europe. Berlin bears the stamp of a rich and colorful past. And it shows the ugly scars of a war in which much of it was leveled and got it. But the heartbeat of West Berlin today is the hum and throb of a city rebuilding. Rising from the rubble of its destruction are the shapes and signs of new and vigorous life. The obvious marks of a city with splendid hopes for its future. More than anything else, a city is its people. If a city hopes and has faith, it is because its people do. And the people of West Berlin have shown a faith so strong in themselves, and in the conquerors who became their allies, that it has itself become a legend to the rest of the world. But with all its faith and the strength of its hope, Berlin is a city in agony. The wall which cuts across it cuts deep, and its scars are as ugly as the scars of war. Cutting through homes and shops, through churches and cemeteries, it separates families and friends, and severs the historic ties which are the veins of a city's life. The Communists built the wall to keep the East Berliners locked inside the prison of their police state. And all along the wall are poignant memorials to those whose last act of life was one of defiance and bravery. But the Communists built the wall, too, in an effort to isolate West Berlin, drive out the Western Allies, and bring this outpost of the free world into the Communist camp. It did not work. The Allies refused to give up their occupation rights in Berlin until all Germany is united through free elections. So despite Communist threats and harassment, they remain in Berlin today. The French, the British, and the Americans. The actual number of US Army troops in Berlin is relatively small, one brigade. But in this potential trouble spot which has dominated the world's headlines for two decades, they have a mission sharply urgent to the nation and the free world, to maintain a stature of constant preparedness. Blind with this mission, their training includes periodic alerts. The streets of Berlin echo to the rumble of his troops deployed through the city. To the Berliners themselves, it is a familiar and reassuring sight. Both these alerts serve as a continuing demonstration of America's commitment to the defense of the territories of freedom. The psychological effect of this continuing demonstration, with its significance to Berliners and Americans alike, is an added payoff for the exercises over and above their training purpose, which is to keep the troops on guard and equipped to handle any contingency that might arise in this divided and troubled city. Village in the outskirts of the city is an important training area for soldiers in Berlin. Actual combat were to break out here. It would involve heavy fighting in built-up areas. Consequently, training bears down on those skills unique to combat in cities. House fighting, the tough and brutal kind of war fought in crowded areas, where the enemy can erect strong and protected defenses, and victory is measured in rooms doggedly cleared one by one, and city blocks methodically taken. This is the kind of war which the soldier in Berlin must always be prepared to fight. This is the kind of war for which he trains, and if the communists ever blow the whistle, he is ready. Army troops maintain a constant patrol along the 54 miles of border within the U.S. sector. Comprised of soldiers from the three infantry battalions on duty here are the mobile outposts of the American presence in Berlin. The wall is their beat. They travel as close to it as they can, keeping it always under surveillance, and keeping the forward areas of the Communist part of the city beyond the wall under continuing observation, or searching for changes in fortifications, or signs of troop and vehicle movement in neighborhoods which could become fields of violence at any time. The British and French counterparts, at a crossing point known throughout the world, as checkpoint Charlie, American troops maintain the right of movement of alive traffic between east and west Berlin. The communists have brought commercial life between their own sector and free Berlin to a standstill, but the Allies have insisted on the freedom of Allied travel, often in the face of harassment and provocation. And checkpoint Charlie remains open, a well-protected breach in the communist wall. At another checkpoint known as Bravo, they maintain the freedom of Allied traffic of another kind. Road travel along the Autobahn through communist territory, which connects free Berlin with West Germany. Trouble occasionally flares here when Soviet authorities attempt to coerce the Allies into dealing with the East Germans. The Allies maintain their refusal to submit to East German control. And checkpoint Bravo remains a lifeline to the Federal Republic of Germany, 100 miles away. Surface access to West Germany is also maintained by rail. A train running between West Berlin and Helmstedt, whose operation is supervised by U.S. authorities. It's not a very comfortable train trip. East German engines pull the cars most of the way. And perhaps in resentment that the Americans have refused to let East German flags fly from the locomotives, the communists sometimes seem to make a brutal game of it. And a grim joke has grown up that through East German territory, the train develops square wheels. But the rail line stays open. And Allied passengers travel it as if they were suburban passengers out of New York. Semplehof Airport, one of the three air bases operated by the Allies inside Berlin. The United States Air Force guides aircraft, both civilian and military, traveling to West Berlin along the three air corridors from West Germany to which the Allies have access rights. Each of the three corridors is 20 statute miles wide. The world has become depressingly familiar with tensions, which arise when communist planes decide to obstruct travel along these routes, or when an Allied plane unwittingly flies off course. Some 3,000 takeoffs and landings a month are normal at Semplehof operations. About 500 of them military aircraft. The other planes of the Allied civilian planes. Indispensibility of access by air to West Berlin is memorialized on the Semplehof grounds in a monument erected by the citizens of Berlin, and dedicated to the Allied airmen who kept West Berlin alive during 11 dark months in 1948 and 1949 by airlifting in the necessities of life when the communists attempted to strangle the city by cutting all surface travel. The American presence in Berlin today is a continuing and living testament to America's recognition of Berlin's special position in the history of our times, and its meaning to America and to the world, the meaning of freedom itself, and the toughness of its vitality and its validity when it is maintained by men who are determined to preserve it. If Berlin occupies a special place in the record of men's struggle to preserve a world where freedom lives and offers hope for a future still dimly seen, so the American servicemen on duty here share that special honor. They know, as not all men are privileged to know, the meaning of the freedom they are sworn to defend. They stand in view of the enemy's watchtowers. They serve in the shadow of the wall he has built. But the cadence of their march echoes along a street, which is itself a memorial to an American president who spoke for them and for free men everywhere, with words he spoke here a few months before his death. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words I am a Berlin.