University Life
Whitman entered the mechanical engineering program at the University of Texas on September 15, 1961. Perhaps because he was free of the discipline and routine he had experienced while stationed at Guantanamo Bay, plus his courtship of a fellow student whom he later married, Whitman was initially a poor student whose grades were largely unimpressive. His hobbies at this point included karate, scuba diving, gambling and hunting. This last hobby earned Whitman his first encounter with police when, shortly after his enrollment at the University, he and two friends were observed poaching a deer: a passer-by noted Whitman's license plate number and reported the incident to police. The trio were in the act of butchering the animal in the shower at Whitman's dormitory when arrested. Whitman was given a $100 fine for the offense.
Whitman acquired a reputation as a practical joker in his years as an architectural engineering student. However, he was also known to make morbid or chilling statements. On one occasion in 1962, as he and a fellow student named Francis Schuck, Jr. browsed at the Main Building of the University of Texas, Whitman remarked: "A person could stand off an army from atop of it (the tower) before they got him."
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