Retired Pilot
Cynical, in a word. Leo hates his life and feels like his current position is beneath him. 10 years after the Gulf War, if he isn't at his home, he's at the bottom of a bottle in one of the many bars near the Air Force Base. With the Service more or less forcing him into early retirement because of his injury he feels like he has nothing left. He is an alcoholic in a deep depression, and borderline suicidal.
A standard issue M1911 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol which he is quite good with, even while drunk. He keeps his pistol in a concealed holster inside his jacket. He also keeps a boot knife on the inside of his right boot.
Leonardo Phoenix joined the US Air Force when he was 18, and graduated flight school from West Point at the top of his class. At first he flew F-15s, but he was particularly attracted to the A-10 Thunderbolt II, or the Warthog.... something about flying an armored bathtub and having that 20mm vulcan between his legs: he didn't quite remember the particulars about that conversation with his CO due to being more than slightly intoxicated but he was transfered to the close air support devision and piloted the A10 throughout the Gulf War. Leo was one of the most successful support pilots in the war, and has many commendations. Afterwards he was taken in to a hush-hush devision. He wasn't even sure the name of it was real... all very scary, but they asked him to fly covert bombing runs in their stealth fighter, the F-117A. Who was he to refuse? Yes sir, of course sir, anything you want sir... He found it quite fun too, until a freak electronics failure downed him in the middle-east. Everything had just shut off like someone pulled the plug, which seemed impossible to him. The ejection seat would not deploy, but the craft responded to dead-stick flight and he crashed the fighter more or less intact into the desert. He was recovered shaken, but largely uninjured a few days later. It was chalked up to pilot error, since they could find nothing physically wrong with the craft. A few years later while flying an F-22 Raptor at supersonic speeds, his craft was involved in a mid-air collision with an unidentified object. He was unable to eject, and crashed into the mountains of Afghanistan. His right leg was crushed in the incident, and even though he was given the best medical treatment, it never did quite heal properly and he was removed from the flight line because he could no longer operate the rudder pedals. The investigation was inconclusive, save that the armor plating around the impact point was melted nearly to a slag, and had fused the pilot's chair in place. A diagnostic of the craft's radar system revealed that the skies and ground were both clear.
"I didn't see what it was, I don't know what happened," was the quote that went on his official report.
Since then he has been shuffled around between desk jobs, or wherever they could find a place for him. He spent most of his time like he does now: drinking away his time to drown out the residual pain of his injury and the shame of having the power to fly taken away from him. His most recent assignment was in Japan, where they announced his retirement. He didn't care enough to fight it, and now waits for his pension paperwork to come through and the moving crew to pack up his things. With nothing else to do he spends his time drinking in the bars around Japan, and recovering during the day.