Let's Not Meet Again

A Veteran's Road Rage

Backstory: I was a senior in high school, 2014, female. I had just turned 17 3 months prior, due to starting kindergarten early because of my birthday and the state I lived in at the time. Point is, I was young. My dad had just unexpectedly passed away a week before this incident. This Friday, was my first day back at school. And yes, my mother made me come back to school less than a week after I found my dad, dead, of a heart attack. So I totally wasn't ready for it, more like forced to "act normal". I do think this played a big part in my reaction.

I went to Vo-Tech. For those who don't know, I had half of my day devoted to a specific trade, cutting my actual time in "high school classes" in half. After lunch, all the tech students would get on the buses to be driven to Tech. I was one of the few who were allowed to drive to Tech because I had a job that sometimes started at the end of my school day, and was allowed to leave early to go to work.

Now for the story.

It's a semi-normal day, even though I just went through the most traumatic event of my life a week ago. Teachers were sent an email of what had happened with my dad. Fellow students ended up finding out. Everywhere I went in school I was asked why I was even there, was I okay, do I need to go home, blah blah. I was pretty much emotionless after spending a whole week crying, I was just over it and wanted to get through the day.

After lunch, I get in my car to head to Tech. I enjoyed Tech, a lot. I was actually looking forward to it. Now Tech is less than 15 minutes away from my high school, not a long trip at all. I'm down the road and someone in front of me stops to turn and I notice the car behind me, an older Ford Taurus, swaying something out the driver window. He's an old man, alone. I assume he's just waving something with the music, and pay no mind.

A little further down the road, someone else in front of me stops to turn. We're at a dead stop, waiting for the other lane to clear so guy ahead can cross. I had my window down as it was a pretty nice day. I then notice the guy behind me, was staring at me through my rear view window, pointing previous object at me, lunging it, and yelling out the window at me.

"You fucking cunt, don't you know how to drive?!" I'm instantly like okay, this is weird, I'm just waiting for this guy to turn? I know that I didn't do any "stupid driving" previously. I'm like wtf, and roll my window up. My school is less than 3 minutes away at this point.

I'm still being a little paranoid and looking in my rear view mirror at this guy, heading down the road. I then see him take the object (that I still can't see well enough to figure out what it is) and take it across his throat, as if he's slicing it. And then pointing it at me. He's also accelerating, riding my ass, then backing off. My heart starts racing because I know this guy isn't joking at this point.

I figured that once I turned into Tech he would keep on driving, just a crazy case of road rage. I'm still scared though. I turn into Tech and pull forward into a spot. The guy whips in and parks directly behind me. I noticed some other students in their car beside me getting their books together and I signal to them to stay in their car, signal "wtf?" looks from them. I mouth that I don't know and to lock the door.

Crazy old guy then comes up to my window with a fucking knife. That's what he was waving out the window this whole time at me, a huge Swiss Army knife. I have no idea how I did not notice that it was a knife.

His face got so close to my window. His eyes were squinted and bloodshot. He had curly white hair, with glasses. He was about 70 years old, but a pretty bulky guy. He truly looked scary, and pissed. He told me to open my door and started trying to open my door when I shook my head no. He then takes the knife and scratches a big "X" on my window fight where my face would be from his point of view. Then he pressed his hands against my window, and pulled my window down a few inches. (I had a Jeep with some really crappy window motors.)

I'm really freaking out now. The window was only open about 2-3 inches due to my rain guards but I was still scared. I took my seatbelt off and started backing away from the window, but didn't want to get out of my seat so this guy could chase me around the inside of my car! He then sticks the knife in my window, inches from my face. I can't roll the window back up. He's screaming that he's going to "Slit my throat like babies and children and their mothers in Vietnam." How I'm "just a stupid little whore that needs to know her place" and other crazy, deranged things like this.

I'm truly scared now and still backing away as far as I can in my seat from the knife, but in a way, after what I just went through, I started to just not care. In my mind, he wanted a reaction, and I wasn't giving him one. I eventually just started saying "Do it! Slit my fucking throat!" "Come get me, is that what you want?" with the straightest, most unemotional face I can muster up.

At this point he's getting confused. He's still wielding the knife at me, but it's only 5-6 inches away from my face. He can't get his arm in my window any farther. He's still shouting how much of a whore I am, how he's gonna kill me and make me pay. I stare at him for a while with no reaction to what he's saying.

I think he realized that whatever he wanted to happen, wasn't going to happen. He took his arm out of my window saying he'll find me, he's still going to kill me, he knows where me and my slut mother live, and how he knows how many dicks I've sucked.

He walks back to his car, and speeds off, hitting a student's car in the process. It took me a few seconds to come back to reality. The girls in the car beside me look at me like "WHAT THE FUCK?!" All the students that arrived when I did stayed in their cars when they realized what was happening.

I got out of my car and so did everyone else. The students rushed over to me, apologizing saying they were too scared to do anything when they saw he had a knife. I didn't blame them, really. That's what I wanted them to do. While this was happening one of them phoned Tech's principle to tell him what was going on.

Tech called the police and they took my statement. The cops kept asking me if I cut this guy off, brake checked him, did I know him, etc, I said no, i didn't do anything to him and I've never seen him before. Tech had no cameras.

I do realize that maybe my reaction was bad. I've had people tell me that I should have put my Jeep in drive and ran him over, or just left the school completely. I think after what I had just went through with my dad, I didn't want to see anymore death, even though this guy actually DID something to me. I didn't want him to target other students if I left. I also was not allowed to have a weapon myself, being on school grounds, not even a can of mace.

Tech ended up letting me go home. A few news outlets wanted to interview me, but I had just had enough. They still did run a story without me that night.

2 days passed, it's now Sunday. The cops call me and say the guy has turned himself in because he saw the story on the news. It turns out that he was a Vietnam veteran and when the police went to his house, he had a "shrine" for the war. A whole room with stuff.

We go to court. They say that because he's a vet that he had a flashback and was temporarily delusional. He has to complete an ARD program, stay 599 feet away from me at all times, and pay for my scratched window. I'm pretty upset by the verdict. I do respect veterans to every extent, but you can't be on the road if you're doing stuff like this to innocent people.

I still do see him around at the store, gas station, etc. I'm not sure if he remembers me or not. Every time he looks at me, but not like he knows me. Just how you glance at any other person. I do feel bad for him, he didn't deserve what that war did to him. But I also didn't deserve what he did to me. I hope one day he overcomes the trauma, like I have. It's made me a paranoid driver that checks the rear view mirror a little too often, and I get scared when someone follows me for too long. I now have a concealed carry permit with a gun, knife, and mace in my car at all times. I'm overcoming it. Thanks for reading.

http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/5850784-74/police-car-state