Maynard James Keenan is featured on the cover of the new Ballistic magazine showing off his custom Tool lyric inscribed gun that has a very touching story behind it. Sargent Robert J. Miller was killed at the age of 24 in Afghanistan on January 25, 2008 when 150 Taliban fighters ambushed his team. Miller bravely engaged the enemies, killing 10, to allow his fellow soldiers to find safety, before he himself was killed. In 2010 he was posthumously awarded with the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions.
Miller was a huge fan of Maynard James Keenan’s work with Tool and A Perfect Circle, constantly blasting Tool’s 10,000 Days in the barracks.
Miller’s teammate Nick McGarry gave Maynard James Keenan a custom rifle in remembrance of Miller at the Gunsite Academy. Keenan insisted on having Miller’s name and information inscribed in it. “It seemed strange having a monogrammed rifle for me to commemorate Miller’s sacrifice. I just wrote some poems. It made more sense for it to have his information so every time we used it we would think of him, not me.”
For the commemorative build, McGarry chose a NEMO Omen Recon chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum. The right side of the rifle’s magazine is engraved with Miller’s full name, biographical information, and unit. Keenan’s initials are on the left side of the magazine well, and the logo for Puscifer, is behind the optics rail. Below the ejection port, a few lines from Tool’s song “Vicarious” are inscribed: “The universe is hostile. So interpersonal. Devour to survive. So it is. So it’s always been.”
