Back The Collector Series: New Dawn By Charles Bird (R.I.P.)

Last Updated: March 20, 2023
Prologue The elderly man was waiting in the airport waiting area with little patience. John Rufus McKinley was waiting for his Grandson, Captain Richard James McKinley, United States Marine Corps, ret. The telephone call he had received hours earlier infuriated him. The retired Marine Brigadier General was never one to suffer fools and this latest was an insult almost beyond bearing. Richard had called from Atlanta, where he had just been released from the VA Hospital. He said that the TSA inspectors required that he remove is new prosthetic leg and arm and pack them in his luggage before he would be allowed to board the airplane! It was bad enough that his government was sending his beloved Grandson home in pieces, they had to add this final indignity to the boy. He and his wife, Emma, had raised Richard from infancy, their son and his wife were killed by a drunk driver as they were headed to the hospital to have Richard. Their son, Lieutenant James Cardigan McKinley, USMC, was killed instantly, and his wife, Mary survived only long enough to deliver Richard. As he watched the arrival ramp, he spotted Richard being pushed in a wheelchair by a young Navy Petty Officer.

Chapters Status: Complete

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