Wow! Fifteen Years

Vodkapundit reminds us that today is the fifteenth anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I had been stationed in Berlin for three years and had returned to the states a mere month before this tremendous crack in the seemingly-unshakable Soviet edifice. As we know, the rest of the Warsaw Pact would follow and, not long afterward, the Soviet Union would be no more.

The lessons are many, but here are some simple ones:

• Sometimes people can free themselves; on other occasions, they may need help.
• A bully will talk a lot, but if you’re tougher and more tenacious than he is, he will go only so far.
• Never spend more than you can afford.
• Never leave town right before the fun starts (okay, that's my personal lesson). :-)

Here’s to more liberty.

(Old Berlin map found here.)

UPDATE: One night in Berlin.

Comments

[ricardo]

love the graphic..where'd you get it from

[Iron Mike]

Here's a tid-bit for you J:

Hans K., Heidi G., Adam B. and I all went down to B. Gate that night to see what's going on. Tom Brokaw was doing the nightly news. The four of us were at the very front, trying to read his teleprompter. After he was done doing a set, he turned around, and Heidi said, "Mr. Brokaw, Mr. Brokaw, can I have your autograph?"
Mr. Brokaw got the FIRST PAGE OF THE TELEPROMPTER AND SIGNED IT! Heidi got his autograph on a sheet saying, "America, this is Tom Brokaw from Berlin, Germany. At midnight tonight, East Germany will be free."
The interesting part is: the entire time Heidi was talking to him, he was staring at her chest. And you remember her "ample" chest!

[baldilocks]

Mike: ROTFL! Sorry I missed that. (For the record, Heidi is a very pretty girl, but only about 5'1" and generally, um, proportionate to her height. Mr. Brokaw's gaze must have been laser-like.)

ricardo: I will link it in the post. I have a bunch of postcards with the image, but I didn't feel like looking for them just now.

[girl]

I was 11. ;-) I was in fifth grade and wrote a poem about "What freedom means to me" and it made the town newspaper. heh. I won myself a piece of the wall for it. I donated it to the city library to put it on display.

[Iron Mike]

J--
Just saw on the G Block Hans, Adam and Heidi...they showed a kid helping a German up on the wall (Adam) and to Adam's left was Hans and to his right was Heidi!
Awesome...I miss that darn place!

Dear girl,
I hope you really got an actual piece of the wall. Hate to say it, but I saw many "enterprising" entrepreneurs painting bits of concrete and then packaging them up and selling them. But your donating it was awesome, especially for an 11 year old!
M

[baldilocks]

Darn it!

[Barb M]

I remember that day well too! I woke up to the news on the clock radio in my college dorm. It was thrilling because we were set to go to Germany on a college trip in December–first stop Berlin!!! There was a picture of me in an issue of the college magazine standing in front of the Berlin Wall. Some of the taller and more physically gifted students in our group climbed the wall and were ordered down by the cops.
And yes, my pieces of the Berlin Wall are authentic. My then-boyfriend-now-husband and I chipped them off ourselves!

[Mythilt]

Another rule you should have baldilocks;

*Always arrive on time to the festivities.

My brother's first deployment with VS-38 was on the Connie in 1997, they arrived at Hong Kong 1 month after the handover.

My best friend in High Schools brother recieved a neat gift. The German exchange student who stayed with them a few years earlier white washed a section of the wall, painted "Happy Birthday Eric" on it, and then sent him some of the pieces the message was painted on, along with photos of the work.

[Kevin Murphy]

Hey, I was in Berlin that last summer, just for a day. I'd spent 4 weeks on business in Hamburg, and went home by way of Berlin so I could walk the wall. Most evil single thing I ever hope to see. Especially the names and the dates.

Three months later it was gone. Who would have thought?

[Marty]

I remember that night well, too, Juliette. It was "Rock Night" at the Club Silverwings. The DJ mentioned something about the Wall "opening at midnight" and, of course, we all blew him off because these rumors had been rampant for a few weeks.

Then someone saw the AFN newscast in the slot machine room, talking about the Wall opening at midnight. Boom! Half the bar bought cheap bottles of champagne, hopped on the U-Bahn, and made it down to an already crowded Checkpoint Charlie.

It was a wild night and early morning. I remember someone giving Brokaw a boost up onto the wall, saying, "I touched Tom Brokaw's ass...I'm not washing my hand for a week?" Was that you, Iron Mike?

I have a photo of me and Joanie Leopardi somewhere from that night...I hope to find it soon.

15 years. Can't believe it was that long ago.

[AH·C]

I missed the big event, but was there before and after the fall. Ah-well, those were the Berlin days.

I liked Wolf's story in that "One night in Berlin". Towards the end of his story, he mentioned something that made me chuckle.

It was in the summer of 90, and the running joke was that you could always spot an Ossie (East German), as they stood patiently in line while the Wessis (West Germans) do as they always do, cut in lines. Seems they also tended to join a line whenever they saw one, without bothering to find out what it was for first -- old habits die hard.

The continual traffic of Eastern tourists and entrepreneurs got so heavy that the Wessis starting saying 'bring the Wall back, but make it higher'.

First chance we got, friends starting renting and buying apartments in the inner old East Berlin. That was an experience in itself living in semi 3rd worldesque conditions. But I digress. ;)