Submitted by MAJ (Ret) Bill Walker and Elin Walker
"Tragedy at Home" appears in our book "Those Were the Days."
In 1963, I was a Lieutenant assigned to the AG Section of Headquarters, 4th Armored Division in Goppingen, Germany. My wife Elin and I lived on the economy in a German apartment. On June 26, 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, standing on a platform in West Berlin, delivered one of his best speeches, a notable moment in the Cold War.
He said that two thousand years before, the proudest boast was "civis Romanus, sum" - I am a Roman. He went on to say, "Today, in the world of freedom - all men, wherever they may be, are citizens of Berlin. Today, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' (I am a Berliner) and therefore am a free man."
The speech significantly boosted West Berliners' morale and earned President Kennedy much respect throughout West Germany. Two months later, during an upbeat mood in Berlin, the American Field Service (AFS) student exchange organization held its International Summer Conference, bringing hundreds of AFS'ers to West Berlin. Elin, a former AFS exchange student from Denmark to a high school in California, was a delegate to the August 1963 Conference.
On November 22-23, 1963, the news of President Kennedy's assassination was profound. In January 1964, the city of Goppingen dedicated a street as a memorial to President Kennedy.
