WH Hawthorne > Quotes

“He assumed a good prone, legs splayed and bent a little, right leg pulled up a bit more than the left, both feet turned out with the heels down. He rested the forestock on his pack, wrapping the sling around his left arm. There was some debate about this technique, but Mick was squarely in the two-wrap camp. He didn’t slip his left hand under the buttstock but instead slid it along the forestock until it reached that old familiar spot, and he tucked the rifle into his shoulder good. You wanted to get it tucked in just right, because that big magnum was one rifle that spoke with authority. You pull the trigger on a .338 Win Mag, especially from the prone with Mick’s bear loads, and it’ll make a man out of you right then and there.
…
Mick kept still for just a second, taking the weight of the rifle in his bones and letting gravity take him and make him part of the Earth itself. He put the crosshairs exactly where he wanted them, paused his breathing at the natural break after a normal exhale, then simply willed that beautiful custom trigger to break. Break it did, crisp and clean like always, and the 225 grain bullet flew downrange at almost three thousand feet per second. It reached the deck in less than half a second, about a half second before the sound of the shot.

The Very Last War
WH Hawthorne”
― WH Hawthorne

“[My friend has] missed another fundamental truth: that great generations have always arisen in this nation in the darkest hours of her most desperate need; that we are the sons and daughters of those generations, some of us by blood, more by philosophy; and that we are not less than they were.”
-Jake O’Connor in The Very Last War by WH Hawthorne”
― WH Hawthorne

“Now the good news. We’re going to pit our new wonder-weapon against their new wonder-weapon and you guys get to be the heroes.”
-Ray Owens in The Very Last War by WH Hawthorne”
― WH Hawthorne