When The Wall Came Tumbling Down

I may be a little late, but reading about all these retrospectives of walls falling and stuff tumbling down and what really happened, or what didn't really happen, etc., etc., I am left with just one thing to add.

When I was in East Berlin a couple years back, I met the military officer in charge in Berlin, at the Wall that night who - when faced with confusion and silence from his superiors - gave the command that changed history.

Do not shoot. Let the people through to West Berlin.

I wrote about it here:
http://jmmcdermott.blogspot.com/2007/03/peace-also-happiness-is-possible-if-you.html

I have his picture, with me in it, and the writer that wrote about the officer in question. I don't have it on this computer, alas, but I know I have it home. I don't have time on my lunch break at work to dig around my blog until the spot where the pictures were scanned into the wires.

I'll edit when I get home, if I can remember to do it.

(PS: When I was traveling in Germany, I went to web cafes and blogged basically the kind of stuff that would have otherwise gone into my journal - or came from my journal. At the time I had about four readers, whom I all knew personally, and I wasn't "Author J M McDermott", just some drifter by the name o' Joe that spoke enough German to get himself into tiny adventures. These days, I don't think I want to journal/blog quite like that. It's like giving away your stories before they're even written.

But, if you're curious, click around. It's a rawer look at worlds and art that hasn't been polished up into fiction.)