It’s 12:15 Monday morning, and I’m driving down University after cramming for ACCT 230 at West Campus Library for the previous three hours (I’m being generous). Before proceeding through the underpass, movement above on the train tracks catches my eyes; trains are not uncommon during the night, as anyone living along Northside orthgate can attest. Tanks, however, are.
There’s no poetic or profound way I can say this: tanks were being transported along our College Station train tracks.
I should be catching up in my ACCT and ECON right now, considering I have tests in both this week, and I’m three chapters behind in each, as well. But my mind returns to those tanks – I shudder every time I think about what I saw.
Curiously, though, is the fact that this vast number of tanks (I lost count even after stopping and putting on my hazard lights so as to count each one) was being transported at night.
But, it makes sense. They’d never be transported during the day when everybody could see them. What kind of field day would there be if we were in buses, stuck behind the train, late to our classes, anxious to take our respective tests, and impatient as to what’s making us late, and we look out to see these tanks going past us. E-42, E-51, E-40 scrawled on their sides, blowing by.
Millions before me have said much more eloquently what I wish to express, but if a scene as surreal as this past morning’s isn’t enough ‘Folgers in your cup’ to wake you up, I’m not sure what is. I’m not a cynic, nor a pure right-wing, nor a pure left-wing. But I am scared, scared of what I witnessed this morning. I’m sure that tanks have been escorted many, many times over those very tracks, but none affected me more than the ones I saw today. Remember the Vietnam War? Black Arm Bands, baby.
Nazer Taqvi
Class of 2005