Private Conversation.

 Not gunmetal, more baby blue. His blinking eyes rising from his
pint deal me two body shots, then a head. And on the foam of bar noise
he floats his paean to the technology of modern small arms.
 How in the field he sees sharpest in darkness, how his enemies fall
victim to poor funding and tumble into empty coffers.
How hair triggers twitch in dark rooms half a world away and infiltrate
the infantryman's thoughts via satellite. How high scores ticker
the TV sets of home.
How GPS allows him to sidestep IEDs (improvised educational devices)
like the media, which peddles its world peace at a hundred dollars per
barrel. How with enough bullets and batteries he'd outlast a dozen
Stalingrads.
And how his arms race for the pitcher of Best Bitter when he panegyrises
the latest improvement on the human eye: a riflescope whose floating
sight system allows him to track his target without the hassle of
aligning two points.