Something for Veteran's Day

Read the whole thing at Liberty For All:

He sighed heavily as he sat on the bench next to the chest and from his vest pocket he pulled a Garcia Y Vega, snipped off the tip of the cheroot with his Cold Steel Gunsite knife and lit it, inhaling deeply the smooth acrid smoke. His eyes glazed over somewhat as he began to reminisce his youthful days as a combat soldier in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the band of brothers that were his and were now, no longer. He began to feel a great sadness and sense of loss as their faces materialized and then vanished from the walls of his memory.

Again he sighed deeply, and took another long draw from the cheroot. Suddenly it dawned on him that dusk was fast approaching on this cold November day. The early evening breeze from the nearby mountain had begun to blow cold, its icy fingers penetrating to the very marrow of the old veteran’s weary joints. He groaned and with a sense of urgency he pulled a soft cloth from the chest. Quickly he unwrapped the cloth from around the cheek rest for his Bushmaster. As quickly as his finger joints would allow he attached the cheek rest to the stock of the rifle. Quickly, oh so quickly, he pulled an oddly shaped appendage made of black plastic from the chest and attached it to the ejection port of the rifle. It was a brass catcher. Last but not least he withdrew several of what appeared to be long metallic boxes. He shoved one up into the magazine well of his rifle, pulled back the charging handle and then released it. The bolt flew forward with a resounding “clunk.”