I'm feeling a bit guilty letting myself get caught up in this, this
business that Mike Geary drew our attention to. I had resolved to
concentrate upon poetry in my waning years, but here I am again with my
mostly Jacksonian opinions. This is, I suspect, partly (in my case) the
result of being a bit burned out studying poetry. I've been focused and
am getting a large dose of what I had hitherto received over the years
in small dosages. It isn't quite that. I hadn't read Helen Vendler
before. I had nave read Mayakovsky. But man cannot live by bread alone.
I've been in enough arguments over the years to know that logic is never
going to be enough. First, one is never going to have enough premises
to be sure there aren't any counter premises out there. Secondly,
starting perhaps with Freud but also with others such as Gadamer we
(some of us) realize that we don't really know what we think we know.
Or rather, we believe a certain thing but when we think back for its
genealogy we can't find it. Or we find it and we bless it as the
perfect genealogy of our argument. I've been thinking these things
long enough to be skeptical about being too dogmatic -- sort of.
I wasn't raised in the South, the heart of Jacksonianism, but I was
raised (the extent that I had some very intense training and
indoctrination) in the Marine Corps. My Drill Instructor was Staff
Sergeant Cathcart. He had a strong Southern accent. Civilians are not
like us. We're Marines! I graduated from High School, went into the
Marines and then went to college. The USMC was a central part of my
education. I've never seen a reason to abandon the Jacksoniansim I
learned in the Corps: leave people alone and expect them to leave you
alone. Don't attack anyone but be prepared to defend yourself against
attack. Rush to the defense of family or friends if you are able. Use
whatever means are at your disposal in their defense as need be.
I was once mugged in Korea during the war -- or rather some off-duty
Rocs attempted one night to mug me. I wasn't carrying a gun but I did
have a knife. I grabbed one by the collar and put my knife to his
throat. He couldn't understand me but he wilted. The Roc behind him
shrugged which conveyed "don't blame me, it was his idea." This wasn't
a big deal. No harm was done. Would anyone have done what I did?
Don't know.
One night someone broke into our small (30 man) base on Cheju Island
while I was walking post. I found him in our power-plant area, pointed
my shotgun at him and ordered him out. When he came out he turned and
ran for the fence. "Halt, halt or I'll shoot," I ordered according to
our procedure. He didn't halt. I was then supposed to shoot him, but I
thought, "I'm stronger and faster," so I ran after him, caught him by
the collar as he was climbing our fence, jerked him backward onto the
ground, and pointed my shotgun at his head and yelled 'halt' again."
That was pretty exciting for me and the others on our base but our
senior sergeant, Staff Sergeant Cook, discovered he was a Roc private,
beat him up as an example to the others, and had me turn him loose. As
it happened most of my fellow Marines said they would have shot the guy.
Killing someone isn't as easy as it sounds, at least I didn't find it to
be. Studies show that a large percentage of soldiers in modern battles
won't actually shoot at the enemy even in the midst of battle. I'd like
to think I would have done it if necessary, but in the only event in
which I was supposed to shoot someone, I didn't.
Still, I was trained to walk post keeping always on the alert . . .
walking with Susan on the beach one night she wanted to walk down closer
to the water, but there was a large man walking along the surf that we
would have needed to encounter, so I steered her away. She was
offended. "How did I know the guy would have been trouble." "Doesn't
matter," I said. "There's no need to take the chance."
And later after we were married and doing a lot of hiking we were in an
extremely remote area when we encountered two men coming toward us. I
was carrying a six-inch Colt Trooper in a belt holster. Susan was
gorgeous back in those days, but I would have carried a gun regardless.
They began asking me questions about my gun implying they'd like to see
it and perhaps hold it. I exhibited some surliness and moved Susan
along the trail away from them. Susan was upset with me for not being
polite. "Didn't like the direction of their questions," I said and she
pouted for awhile as we hiked along.
Susan's dad was from Tennessee and he always had guns but Susan was
against guns when I met her. She also didn't believe it necessary to
lock the front door when she went out. When we were first married we
lived in an apartment. She went out to shop and left the front door
unlocked. I was in the spare bedroom reading & thought I saw something
out of the corner of my eye & so reached down and put my diving knife on
my desk (didn't have a gun back then). Later I looked out and saw the
front door wide open. "What's the big deal," Susan wanted to know after
she got home. "No harm was done"? "What if you came home and found a
drug addict bleeding on the floor with my diving knife stuck in him.
Would that be a big deal?"
And so here I am almost 81 with a set of opinions, but they are based to
some extent upon my experiences. I had an upbringing that encouraged me
to become a Marine and rush off to war (my friends didn't however so my
upbringing must have been different -- don't remember the differences).
I believed in keeping in shape and practicing prudence in regard to
self-defense and protecting my family. And, interestingly, over the
years, many people, including one person on this very forum, have asked
my advice or plan to ask my advice about self-defense and which manner
of gun might be best to purchase. Is this a personal or thing? Is my
own history solely at work? But there were others in boot camp and in
the other jobs I had in the Marine Corps who would agree with me. So is
it a cultural thing as Walter Russell Mead argues. Were we made
Jacksonians by being influenced by Jacksonians? Don't know, and at my
age don't really care. I no longer need to protect, Susan, she's gone.
I use a modest amount of protection when I go hiking. One of my dogs
is well able to take care of himself, however,
One day Ben chased a coyote into the brush. A few moments later he came
out and I waited for him to catch up so we could continue the hike, but
the coyote came back out and taunted him. He chased it again, came
back, and the coyote came back too. They did this about five times. I
didn't know what the coyote was up to but I didn't like it; so when the
coyote came back I fired my Walther 22 into a tree above his head and he
ran away, this time long enough to allow me to steer Ben on down the
trail. Not a big deal -- I didn't hurt the coyote and Ben wasn't hurt
by the rest of the pack who might have been waiting for Ben to get tired
out -- just another day in the river that flows beneath the San Jacinto
mountains.
I'm much more interested in poetry than I am guns -- probably always was
-- still expect though to take the little Walther to the river the next
time we go hiking. But if Geary manages to take my Walther away I will
carry a large knife. If Geary decides to take that as well, I'll stiff
have my hiking stick. Not a big deal.
Lawrence
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