Take a Rifle from a Dead Man

He was a small man now. His hair was thin and gray and wild on his head like some mad professor who had stuck his finger in a light socket. His face was sunken and he hadn't shaved in five days. In that moment he looked like a derelict on the street. Even so, he was still lean and muscular in a way that revealed a life of suffering and combat. He was a man who struggled with ghosts and the faces of those who had died at his hands. He had never meant to live that life. He was-in his...
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He was a small man now. His hair was thin and gray and wild on his head like some mad professor who had stuck his finger in a light socket. His face was sunken and he hadn't shaved in five days. In that moment he looked like a derelict on the street. Even so, he was still lean and muscular in a way that revealed a life of suffering and combat. He was a man who struggled with ghosts and the faces of those who had died at his hands. He had never meant to live that life. He was-in his heart-a poet and a scholar, a man who not only had read the classics but could recite entire passages. He was a student of history and the ancient Greeks. He was also a recognized firearms expert, a black belt in Judo, a skilled knife fighter, and a man who knew precisely where and how to use a blackjack. He could pick virtually any lock in seconds. He could survive behind enemy lines. What he could not do was live an ordinary life, a challenge he had failed in the years since he took his retirement as a Command Sergeant Major of the United States Army. This is his story.