Originally Posted by DoninDel
I have a great story.
1968 - Along the DMZ in Vietnam. In the Marines in a 4-man post on guard duty. 2 men stay awake half the night, then wake up the other 2 and the first 2 sleep. Paired off with some guy I didn't know, and probably wouldn't see again, but had been on lots of guard duty, so knew the drill. You want to talk to stay awake, but no talk of women, because there aint no women, and he'll probably talk about his girlfriend,.... No talk about food, because there aint no food, and you just get hungry....No politics, no religion,... Meanwhile I look and the sky was awesome - you could clearly see the Milky way - so I said - "Wow. Look at all those stars" - harmless. right? And this guy answers "Yeah, and Jus Dink - Dats all light from Da sun"...
I froze. I closed my eyes and said to myself Please, Please let there be a smile on his face - but I looked over and he's just staring blankly. I asked what he meant (the actual quote was 'WTF are you TALKING about?')- he said "Well, da Moon. Da Moon aint got no light of its own, it's light reflected from da sun" I go, well yeah, but I'm not talking about the moon, I'm talking about stars - you know, the sun is a star, only it is so much closer...
This guy tells me I'm wrong, and I get out of him that he believes that the sun is the sole source of light in the entire universe and everything we see is reflected light. I tried to reason and explain, but he wouldn't budge. I told him it was sad that the ancient Egyptians knew more than he did, and he accused me of cursing at him ( had no idea what Egyptians were). I asked him where he was from, because I never, ever wanted to visit there... I gave serious thought to the fact that I could well be screwed that if we were attacked, and my life depended on him reacting properly, I would probably be dead.
I stayed up all night...
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