by Hap Rocketto
There is pleasure in being a necromancer. I recently resurrected Harry Seeburger. You will remember that Harry was the character that vainly chased Distinguished designation for more than four decades. Some years ago he went on to his reward lacking but 24 points to earn the badge. Heaven, for Harry, must be a rifle range where only leg matches are fired and where his name always appears at the top of the match bulletin.
Another Harry Seeburger epic story has surfaced and I have no reason to disbelieve its veracity. I also have no qualms about passing it on to you as the truth I know it to be. It is such an unbelievable a story that it cannot be anything but true. Again, Harry is at a leg match shooting the 300 yard rapid prone stage. As the range officer began his litany a puff of wind, worth about one click left windage, lifted Harry’s scorecard from beneath his scope base and wafted it downrange.
Instinctively Harry scuttled after it. He was oblivious to the dozens of shooters to either side of him, with loaded rifles at port arms, who were prepared to flop down prone and fire away. Let’s face it, that card represented a great deal to him and he must have been blinded by the fear that the card would escape him, and with it another chance to leg. He wasn’t going to let a little gust of wind stand between him and his goal of a lifetime. As he picked up his card and turned to scamper back to his point the enormity of the range violation he had committed suddenly dawned upon him.
He stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, like a bull eyeing the matador before the fatal stroke, he swung his head from side to side eyeing the line of armed riflemen. His mind must have flashed back to other similar hopeless military situations and instinctively, like the true infantry NCO he was, he bellowed out at the top of his lungs, “FIX BAYONETS! CHARGE!” He then bolted back to his point, did a neat about face, and resumed the ready position. Unbelievably the range officer continued and the relay fired the stage.
By the time the smoke had cleared the officials had regained their senses and descended upon Harry like a swarm of angry hornets. They were, they said, sad to inform him that he had violated safety rules to such an extent that they must disqualify him as an abject lesson to others. Harry agreed that he had sinned grievously. Mustering his dignity he looked them straight in the eye and said, “Ya coulda at least told me before I shot! At this stage in my life the last thing I needed was another practice string at 300!” He then turned his back upon them and slowly trudged back into the mists of Leg Match legend from which he had emerged.
