OLD VETERANS
The two young men watched the old guy at the end of the bar, raise his drink to his lips with a shaking hand, and nod at the ceiling, then down his drink. They smiled at each other, one digging his elbow into the other's ribs. "Look at that crazy old fart."
"Fellas," said the regular sitting next to them, "that old fart has seen things you can't even imagine. Those hands have stroked the newly born. Those old wrinkled hands have fixed badly needed cars, shaped wooden toys for grandkids, smoothed the hair of crying children, put on and taken off training wheels on bikes, opened hymn books at burial services, and twisted more liquor bottles open and spilt more beer than you ever saw, but that's not why his hands shake."
"You see boys that man went thru a war – a war called Viet Nam. Those hands stroked the triggers of M-60 machine guns, M-16 rifles, grease guns, 50cals, mini guns, and helped collect the belonging of friends killed there. Those hands wrote to their Moms and their wives. But that's not why they shake. He has worked hard and long, all his life, keeping quiet about the things he saw and heard, but that's not why they shake. You see boys, today is 4th of July. All you hear are fireworks. He honors his dead friends, but the reason his hands shake is because he hears firefights and arty. It all comes back, on this day. He can still hear the screams, the helicopter blades, smell the cordite, and remember the dreams."
"You see boys, every single year, every fucking year, on this date; the war is shoved back on him. This is his day for the demons; pray you never have those days. Boys, that's what a veteran is all about".