From the Santa Barbara News-Press

By Matt Bloise

June 26, 2010
Most teenagers spend the summer between high school and college working a low-paying job, hanging out with friends or making plans to decorate a dorm room.

Ben Coupe, an 18-year-old graduate from the Los Angeles area who will go to Cornell University in the fall, has decided to go bowling in Znojmo, a tiny village in the southern Czech Republic, near the Austria border. The reason, as with so many other things in that part of the world, has to do with Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Coupe is part of the 2010 Liberty Education Tour, hosted by the Reagan Legacy Foundation, which has spent the last eight days winding its way through central Europe with high school students from around the United States. The tour is part of the foundation's effort to explain and defend the legacy of Ronald Reagan, what he believed in and what he fought for. This year, 19 young Americans will explore the ideas of the 40th president by walking the ground where he made history.

Larry Greenfield, executive director of the Reagan Legacy Foundation, said the idea for the tour began during the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, when much of the media claimed that the Cold War ended solely because of policies implemented by Mikhail Gorbachev. There was a chapter to history which he felt needed to be redressed.

"We felt that something was missing, a celebration of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, who confronted the empire and supported the dissidents," he said. The foundation began organizing the first of what they hope will be many tours through Central Europe to show students the proof of Mr. Reagan's importance in defeating communism.

"This would be a chance for future college students to study a topic that might not receive much attention in higher education," he added. "While there are ethnic studies, they might be leaders with a background of liberty education. Liberty is the essential American value, and we want these students to have an opportunity to understand it, to explore it, to debate it. They have a chance to think about American leadership in a still-dangerous world."

The tour is focusing on areas of Europe that were directly affected by the 40-year reign of Soviet occupation, which Mr. Greenfield said tend to view Ronald Reagan more favorably than some Western Europeans. The group arrived in Prague on June 20, where they viewed historic castles and the Jewish Quarter of the city along with Wallenstein Palace, home of the Czech Senate. From there, they moved to the Austrian border where they saw bunkers and barbed wire from World War II, a remnant of the Nazi occupation. Next, they will see the Terezin ghetto and concentration camp, and then on to Berlin.

At the Checkpoint Charlie Museum, once the main access point to the Soviet Empire, students will have a chance to examine a new exhibit installed with the help of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. The students will see the contributions of Ronald Reagan to the end of communism before moving on to the Brandenburg Gate -- site of his "Tear Down This Wall" speech -- then to the Holocaust Museum, Hitler's bunker, the secret police's prison and a concentration camp, before returning home.

It's not all fun and games, however. Along the way, they'll answer trivia questions about European history. Who was the priest martyred at the Prague River in the 14th century? Why did the Czechs build bunkers prior to World War II? When and where did the Velvet Revolution occur, and why is it called velvet? How did people escape over the Berlin Wall?

The students are also required to complete assigned readings from texts that have been instrumental in the history of freedom, including the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and speeches from John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan. When they return, they will then visit the Reagan Library in Simi Valley and his ranch above the hills of Santa Barbara, before participating in a two-and-a-half day conference at Young America Foundation's Santa Barbara offices. There they will be joined by a group of European students who have spent the last few days on their own liberty tour in Southern California.

For Mr. Coupe, the trip has been a chance to explore the world he's read so much about. "I've always seen Europe in a textbook, as an abstract concept, and it's come to life," he said. "It's incredible to think of living in that town without any freedom. I've talked to several people about Stalin in the 1930s, and it's absolutely brutal. To me, communism is nothing but an excuse for absolute tyranny -- I don't understand how they can go through that and still have a Communist Party in this country."

"I've always found that talking with people of my generation, whether they be liberal or conservative or anything, has always benefited me," he continued. "The respectful interaction of political ideas has always been important to me. I always want to refine my own conservative beliefs, because you can't just be stagnant with what you believe."

"They represent America well," Mr. Greenfield said about the students. "They are incredibly good willed, well prepared and thoughtful. He (President Reagan) would have been very proud indeed of these youngsters."