Russians? What Russians?

I was in Alaska in '63, and I don't remember the Russians as being an issue around there.  I don't think the Russians ever did much with Alaska when they had it.  I think they mostly hung around the coast hunting seals and being mean to the Indians.  There may have been parts of Alaska that had a Russian cultural heritage, but I was never in any of them.  I remember hearing on the radio that the U.S. and Russia had just signed a treaty, something to do with nuclear weapons.  I was against it on general principles, but I don't remember anybody else showing an interest in it one way or another.

I was in Berlin in '66 and the Russians were certainly a big deal there, but not as big a deal as they had been a few years earlier when the Wall was new.  By the time I got there, everybody who wanted to escape to the West had already done so, or died in the attempt.  The Berliners in the American Sector really liked us, probably because we were the only thing standing between them and the Russians. I think the British and French soldiers were just as popular in their own sectors, but I don't know that for a fact.  I did have some contact with British and Irish soldiers, but I never met any French or Russians face to face.

With all the saber rattling that went on in those days, it's surprising that the Cold War never turned into a Hot War, either accidently or on purpose.  I seem to remember posting a story about that on this forum, "The War That Never Was", and it's probably still somewhere in the archives, but  I don't remember if I ever told youse guys about the pigs.  There were lots of wild hogs in and around Berlin and, once in a while, one of them would set off a land mine or a trip flare along the Wall.  When that happened, all the nearby border guards would shoot off their guns because they didn't want to be accused of being soft on escapees.  The reason I know this is that I was pulling guard on an ammo dump one night, and had been told that the Wall was only a few hundred yards away.  When the night sky was lit up by flares and gunfire I thought that the war had started but, when I phoned the Sergeant of the Guard, he told me that it was nothing to worry about.  I already had doubts about the competence of our leadership, and this certainly didn't reassure me.  Somebody told me about me about the pigs later, which made me feel a little better, but not much.