Description

Personality

Gruff and laid-back, but very alert. Tough but gentle, like leather. Enjoys simple things, like music, and rocking chairs. Kind of dumb, but more like a smart dumb (example: understands why plants grow, but unable to tell an orange from an apple when he is slightly tired). Loves his family dearly; they are usually what's on his mind when you ask. The typical midwestern American.

Equipment

Older Enfield 1917 feeding 30-06, same as the M1 Garand round; Colt M1911A1 handgun in .45 ACP, little ammo left for it; wool blanket; vulcanized rubber cloth, used as a poncho; flight web gear; floppy black mining hat from home, which he carried in his cockpit for luck (it didn't work); various articles of clothing taken from whichever nation's soldiers he could get it from

History

Born and raised in a small Colorado mining town as the youngest of 11 children born to an aging American Civil War veteran. Worked the mines and attended a one-room schoolhouse until the Great War came around, during which he enlisted for the Air Corps and was selected due to his previous experience flying a crop duster on the family farm. Flew with the Lafayette Escadrille over France and got 8 kills in the 2 years he was there. Saw first-hand the futility of dated tactics combined with new technology during the 2 times he was shot down over No Man's Land. After he came back home, he watched his family die along with the town's economy, and moved out to Boulder with his childhood sweetheart, where they were married and had 4 children. He re-enlisted after the foreign declarations of war in 1939 the U.S. Army Air Corps, and was transferred to the English Eagle Squadron, an RAF flying unit meant for American volunteers looking to join the war while their nation remained neutral. Whilst flying an escort mission over Africa with the Free French Air Force in 1941, he was shot down over Eastern Turkey by German forces and transported north through the Caucasus, en route to the POW camp known as Stalag XX. The convoy carrying him was ambushed by Russian guerrillas and joined their march to link up with a larger force near a city named Stalingrad. Luckily, he survived Stalingrad with the Russians, and was transferred over to American hands at the outset of the Battle of the Bulge, though his escort unit has now been cut off outside of Bastogne.