Reply #79: Having just returned from an environment of extreme violence, I was an easy mark (perhaps). [View All]

[DemoTex]

I was an early star in the class. Age. Experience. Confidence.

Perhaps I threatened the professor by my presence. My VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) affiliation was well known. We were not a welcomed group on that conservative southern campus, but certain students .. especially those in a philosophy class and hippie chicks .. loved our ass.

He had used the "defend your existence" line in class, without the gun-play. But when he pulled the gun on ME, I thought one thing: I've been shot at and missed, and shot at and hit. WTF is this all about? However, I never once thought he might discharge the weapon. In my mind, at the time (and probably now too), the gun was a prop for his attempted mind-rape.

Fortunately, I'd spent some time in Viet Nam studying philosophy and Latin through correspondence courses from the University of Georgia. I was in shape, intellectually speaking!

You referenced the film The Deer Hunter. Not that it has any bearing on my experiences that I related here, but I just do not like that movie. I own it, and I occasionally watch it. But it is way too fake (snow-capped western Pennsylvania mountains? Viet Nam scenes?) to do anything for me. The boiler-maker, post-graveyard-shift bars seemed to be the most accurate scenes in the film.