I've been there.....well, almost.

I was almost there.

Mine happened about 17 years ago, January of 1991 in Austin, TX. I had just gotten back to UT, after the winter break.

Over the break, I had gone by and talked to my ex-girlfriend, Cheryl, over the holidays, because we were still on good terms, even though it had been about a year since we broke up. At one point, she told me that she had something to tell me, and pulled me aside (we had been talking in the living room, with her parents there). Her mom made a quiet remark to the effect that they would know when she told me, as she and I went into the kitchen. After getting a drink, she held my hand, and told me that she had joined the Marines, and would be leaving in February. I was very supportive, because she was planning on doing this as a means of getting money for college. I had to leave shortly after this. As I left, her mom had a slightly curious look on her face as I said goodbye.

Three days after I got back to school, we were having a party in the dorm on the last Saturday or Sunday before school started back up. I got a call from my parents during the party, so I went next-door to call them back. When I got them on the phone, they told me that they had seen a story about Cheryl in the paper. They asked if I knew she was going into the military, to which I said yes. Then they asked if I knew she was married.

This floored me. My mom summarized the story. Cheryl and her husband had been married about two weeks before. While I can't remember exactly, I think it was a couple of days before I saw her that she had been married. They were scheduled to ship out one month after being married, to opposite ends of the country.

I called Cheryl. We spoke for a few minutes. About ten minutes into the conversation, I asked if there was anything new. When she didn't say anything, I said that I just wanted to say congratulations on the wedding, and good luck in the military. The only thing she was able to say, before I hung up, was "I'm sorry."

I quickly had another drink, and went for a walk. It was about 11:00 PM. I walked around campus for a bit, and then after about an hour or so, I walked from the UT campus down to Town Lake. I walked around at the lake, sat on a bench for a while, and then decided to go back to the dorm.

As I am walking back, I get to about 11th street on Congress, just south of the Capitol, when a police car, with lights on, screeches past, and parks right in front of me. I hear another car pull up behind me, and I look and it is yet another police car. As I look back at the first car, the officer has his hand on his gun and yells at me to put my hands on my head. Thoroughly confused, I comply, and the two officers from the car behind me come up behind me, and one of them starts to search me. With at least some clarity, I remember to tell the officer about the buck knife in my front pocket, which is immediately removed from my possession. In this time, two more police cars pull up.

At about the same time as the officer finishes searching me, the first officer asks me what I am doing out on the street. I relay the story about my ex, and say that I was out for a walk to clear my head. After he finished searching me, the officer hands my id to the first officer who proceeds to run a check. The officer who searched me wants to know why I am around the Capitol, ask me who I am, etc. Around this time, the last two cars to arrive leave. He then proceeds to tell me that there was a report of an individual in the area waving a gun around, and I was the only one in the area. Since they had not found a gun, and did not think I had had time to ditch it, he didn't think that I needed to worry. The other cars were continuing to look for someone else, or evidence that a gun had been tossed away nearby. The first officer came back. He asked me why I had chosen to come downtown, instead of staying back up at the campus. When I told him that I had just wandered down without a plan, he told me that I should NOT just wander back, but that I should head directly back and if there were ANY issues along that route, he had my information.

When the last officer had left, I made as much haste back to the school. I was thoroughly exhausted from the event, and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. (The party had stopped, but no one had left. They were worried about my extended absence. Before leaving on my walk, I had felt obligated to tell the guy whose room I had used to make the phone calls about my ex getting married. By the time I had gotten back to the room, four hours had gone by.)

From today's perspective, looking at the story, I see people exclaiming that this is a result of people panicking over concerns about terrorism. But my incident was about 10 years prior to September 11th. And in a state known to be friendly to guns. Police take threats seriously. They can't ignore statements made by members of the public. Had my incident taken place during rush hour, instead of at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, I have no doubt that things would have been different. For one thing, there would have been many more people, and therefore a need for more police. And I have my doubts about being detained right there at that intersection. The climate of fear of terrorism had nothing to do with my incident, and I doubt that it had anything to do with the incident in London.