The ancient gun hangs suspended on two square nails above the mantle where it has slept one- hundred forty years. It is a classic, for in it's day a round from this rifle could travel six-hundred yards to leave an unsuspecting man in blue writhing in the weeds.
The stock was cut and carved without touch of lathe or saw. A bayonet is locked beneath the barrel for combat face to face. It smelled of blood after Antietam,and Gettysburg in 63'.
A coffee can holds leaden balls the size of marbles. The faded, moldy leather pouch long empty of black powder droops in silent tribute to bitter days long past. Deep scars are etched into metal and wood, giving assent that it had seen much battle. It is still and silent now.
What would this rifle say were it to speak of all the other wars following in it's wake? Would it believe they would follow? Spain in 98'. The great war to end all wars?
Some names are blazened in history; Verdun, Anzio, North Africa, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Chosin Reservoir, Viet Nam, Iraq, and hundreds other un-named battlegrounds where men died, both friend and foe.
The gun hangs quietly there. No smell of burning powder or screams of the dying calling vainly for a medic or their mother. Silence.
What have we learned? The muted rusty rifle perhaps is telling us through it's silence.
