A middle-aged Cambodian man and his son emigrated to the US.  The man had been a prisoner in a notorious camp under the Pol Pot government, where he had suffered at the hand of one Major Liu. “They torture me every other day,” he said to his son, holding up the black and white photo of the young Major Liu in civilian clothes.  He had somehow obtained this snapshot, which showed a smiling young man, dressed for tennis.  “if you ever see this man,” he said to his son, “you kill him.”
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“Grizzled veteran”, those were his words, right? Shit. What gives that pasty, greasy teenager any right to comment on my nature?  I suppose a number of episodes might qualify him as “veteran”, but “grizzled”… what does that even mean anyway? Very little of the pointless mission lecture registered with the vet following that comment and probably just as well. As the silenced helo skirted the edges of one ratty pile of mortar and rubble after another, one look at the blackened cityscape ahead summoned visions of missions past into the tightly muscled figure of the war-fighter. He had been here before. No, not in this specific city and obviously not with the same team, but he’d seen enough combat against idealistic “insurgents” in bombed out, inner city shells to know this hell hole would be no better, and no less dangerous. The interior of the helo was dimly lit and shadows from the smoldering jump light danced over the half-dozen or so faces that joined him. He figured he would be lucky to see half of them tomorrow.
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