I did five duty tours along the 5-km zone in West Germany along the East German [870 miles] and Czechoslovolkian border in 1967, prior to my later tour of Southeast Asia spas and resort areas. Some of them were quite interesting, even sporty.
And yes, there were occasional successful crossers, whom we generally did not try to kill, though they had been told we would. But those numbers were very managable compared to what's going on along that 2000-mile border with Mexico.
