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Joined: May 2003
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I've been asked to never stop posting this for Memorial Day. So, once again may I introduce you to...

One Fewer

I first saw him hobbling down the aisle of a small gun show. He was obviously of advanced age: white-haired, frail and walking with a pronounced limp, his bony left hand grasping one of those spiral thornwood canes that look like a kudu’s horn. It was that cane that caught my attention – without it, the man would have been invisible.

His pained but determined pace picked up when he neared a table only two away from mine. The table’s owner displayed military battle rifles. The old gent stopped there, but I became distracted by customers of my own and did not notice him again.

The promoter held two shows a year in that small town, and I became a regular vendor. After that first time, I started noticing the old gentleman at every show. He always carried that magnificently polished, deep brown cane. He always went steadfastly to that same dealer’s table. He always came on Sunday morning when the crowds were thin.

Clearly not well off financially, the old man’s clothes never varied. His shoes were of brown leather, the toes curled up from age, deep cracks at the toe bend and the heels worn to a smooth curve; but they were always carefully brushed to a soft luster. His slacks were khaki cotton, a semblance of a crease still showing down the front of each leg, with an irregular outline on one thigh that bespoke of a liquid stain long ago acquired. His sports jacket was dark brown wool, its herringbone pattern all but obliterated by age. Its pockets sagged as if he’d once limped home –in a driving rain- with oranges in them. The dulled and faded miniature of a military ribbon adorned the jacket’s left lapel. Under the jacket he always wore a white shirt so thin his sleeveless undershirt showed through. On his Western-style bolo tie, a walnut-sized, blood-red stone mirrored the man’s jutting Adam’s apple. Raising the stooped figure to perhaps five-feet six, a grey fedora hat rode. Now battered, sweat-stained and misshapen, the hat characterized him as much as the liver spots on his pallid, papery skin.

I was able to catalog such small details because of his laborious gait. He’d plant the tightly clutched cane, then half-shuffle, half-slide his crippled left leg forward, and finally his still-spry right: tap, drag, step; tap, drag, step. Just watching him brought a dull empathetic ache to my hips and knees.

Neither his appearance nor his habits ever varied: he’d hobble past my table, spend a few minutes in front of the rifle collector’s display, then leave, unnoticed.

And then, one time, he failed to appear.

Just before the show ended that Sunday afternoon, I ambled over to the rifle table. On one end were a few P-17 Enfields and Springfields, a couple SMLE’s, one or two ’98 Mausers and an Arisaka. At the other end were several .30 M-1 carbines, a Garand and even a rare Johnson rifle. It was interesting stuff, but I really wanted to ask about the old man.

“I heard he passed away last month,” the dealer said. “I’ll miss him.” He shook his head ruefully and looked down.

“You know anything about him? Your table was the only one he ever visited, as far as I saw.”

“Not much. But it wasn’t my table that he visited. It was this,” he said, pointing to the Garand.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s like this…the first few times he came by, I tried to wait on him. But he never spoke a word – like I wasn’t even there. He’d walk up, stand there a bit, and then he’d lightly touch the Garand. With just his fingertips, as though it was his lover or something, you know? Then one time I said, ‘You seem like you know that rifle. Carry one in the Army?’ He shook his head a little and kept right on caressing that rifle’s stock, but he said ‘Marines.’

“So then I looked at him a little closer. You know that little blue pin in his lapel? That’s the Navy Cross, and it’s the highest they give except for the Medal of Honor. And so I had to ask him where he got it, and he finally looked up at me. His eyes were brimming, as if some nightmare just came back to him, and he choked out one word: ‘Tarawa.’

“After that, I’d sell any rifle on the table, except that Garand. It would have killed him if I had. I never will sell it, now.” He stood silently for a second, then concluded, “Those two spoken words and that ribbon are all I know about that old man, but they’re all I need to know.”

As if drawn to it, I stroked the stock of the Garand and whispered, “Thank you.” I’m not sure if I said it the dealer, or that rifle, or the hovering spirit of that departed hero. Maybe all three. But I meant it.

A note: I read recently that as many as 2,000 veterans of World War II pass away every single day. That’s more than were lost on many days of the war. If you know or even meet a veteran from that conflict, thank them from the bottom of your heart…while you still can.

Printed in “The Big Show Journal” May/June 2005 ©Copyright Rocky Raab 2005


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Thanks Rocky


Originally Posted By: slumlord

people that text all day get on my nerves

just knowing that people are out there with that ability,....just makes me wanna punch myself in the balls
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They are leaving quickly and we owe them a lot.


I am..........disturbed.

Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn't any. But this wrongs the jackass. -Twain


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Thank you Rocky. It pains me the number of people who don't know that Memorial Day is not for the living.

Thank you departed vets. I don't know if I could have done what you did. I'd like to think so. I know that I love this country and without our national security, we have nothing.

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I always am made thoughtful and thankful by reading that story. Thanks Rocky.


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Thanks Rocky.

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Thank you Rocky.

My Dad, a Pearl Harbor survivor, has been gone two years now. I miss him every day...

Bless them all.

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My Dad was on Tarawa and Iwo Jima. He passed away 11 years ago. I sure miss him.



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Bump



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Thanks for posting this story. Most of the younger generation have no ideal.


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thank you

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Thank you, Sir. You captured the very essence of those great warriors and those who still appreciate them. I thank them for our freedom.


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Dear RockyRaab,

Thanks for sharing a great American story. My family, going way back has many years of service in our nations military and consider it an honor to have served our country. It was long ago when a Jap sniper killed my 19 year old Uncle LeRoy in the Philippines, a couple of months before WWII ended. Gone, but not forgotten by my family.

My Uncle Ed is now 93 and I will call him today, he is our last surviving WWII D-Day family member. He went in on a glider with the 82nd and 155 others, due to so many casualties he and 13 others joined up with the 101st.

His vivid account of his M1 Garrand being shot out of his hands, the freezing deep timber fighting, the mortars exploding trees, the battle of the Bulge and single handedly capturing 5 Germans is riveting to me. He spoke with admiration of firing his beloved BAR and thanks God for the swollen aching head injury from a bullet that entered his helmet, but spared his life, but he kept in the fight and eventually lost an eye because of it.


He is one of 14 of his original group of 155 that came home alive. We do not celebrate Memorial Day, but we do spend the day in solemn remembrance of our nations fallen warriors.


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Thanks, Rocky for posting this. Not only did the story bring tears to my eyes it made me remember a fine man I worked for as a teenager.

Ron served in the South Pacific on several islands. In his desk was a stack of photos taken from the wallets of Japanese soldiers he had killed. They were of the soldier usually with his family. One day he leafed through the pile and told me how each one happened. Ron still carried shrapnel in his body from his service when I knew him and had lost much of his hearing in one ear from a bullet that just missed his head. He's been gone for years but I still love and admire him.


"It is wise, though, to remember above all else: rifle, caliber, scope, and even bullets notwithstanding, the most important feature of successful big game hunting is to put that bullet in the correct place, the first time!" John Jobson
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I still remember the soldiers I met from the Rough-riders, WWI, WW II, Korea, Viet Nam, and the Middle East. - may they all rest in a well-deserved peace.


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Thank you Rocky. May we never forget.


James Pepper: There's no law west of Dodge and no God west of the Pecos. Right, Mr. Chisum? John Chisum: Wrong, Mr. Pepper. Because no matter where people go, sooner or later there's the law. And sooner or later they find God's already been there.
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My father who passed last December at ninety-one, was in the Philippines at age 18 and a half — received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star.

His only words about the experience were that the hidden Jap soldier who shot him through the heel must have been as scared as he was as he was close enough that he heard him trying to work the bolt.

That’s a nice piece Rocky.

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Thanks for posting.


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GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS
ESPECIALLY THE SNIPERS!
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Thanks Rocky. Brought me to tears.


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from Numbers 6:24-26

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Thank you, Rocky, as always this story brings me to tears. We owe so much thanks to our fighting men and women.


Sic Semper Tyrannis
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