They lay stacked under red, white and blue bunting - 25 copies of Terry L. Garlock's book, "Strength and Honor: America's Best in Vietnam."
The hardbound volumes await signatures.
Not the author's, but the signatures of local heroes who served in the Vietnam War.
Melvin Gregory scratched his name inside the cover of each Friday afternoon in the Missouri River Regional Library annex in Jefferson City.
From now until Oct. 26, veterans like Gregory will sign the books and raise money for Operation Bugle Boy, a nonprofit organization that honors veterans, soldiers and first responders, and Central Missouri Honor Flight, which provides flights to Washington, D.C., for selected veterans, to give them opportunities to visit cemeteries and monuments that honor them.
The books will be available to purchase for $150 each beginning Nov. 9 at Samuel's Tuxedos and Gifts, 125 E. High St. Each will come with an alphabetized list of the name, branch, rank and time of service of all veterans who sign them.
To sign the books, veterans should go to the annex at 209 Adams St. during business hours, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. When they arrive, they will be asked to fill out a brief form and to describe their experiences, including the honors they received.
They then will get the chance to sign each book.
Gregory did so Friday. He said he was a little unsure about the idea of signing the book at first. But Operation Bugle Boy President Chris Jarboe reassured him.
"This is all new to me," Gregory said. "There was so much misinformation passed by the government."
He studied what was written for the past 50 years. There were more than 50 books dedicated to his unit alone.
Gregory is usually private about his service. He was in Vietnam for about a year, beginning in 1965.
"It was a long year," he said. "I was the sole survivor of my company."
The U.S. soldiers were there to build clinics and schools and to help a "very suppressed" South Vietnamese people, he said.
"We called it civil action," Gregory said. "The American people were totally unaware of that."
Jarboe went to Gregory and showed him the book. Pages Jarboe knew might encourage Gregory were flagged.
The Amazon description of the book says "political struggles buried the truth about the Vietnam War in a tangle of myths, half-truths and lies." It says the truth remains hard to find now, but one constant is the faithful and capable service of America's troops sent to fight the war.
Gregory flipped through the book and found Joe Galloway, who was a correspondent he knew and had been in combat with in the Ia Drang Valley. He also saw a chaplain who was assigned to the Black Knights after he left had approved the book.
"That changed my mind," Gregory said.