[hider=SSG Jason Kross ] [u][i][b]Name:[/b][/i][/u] Jason Kross [u][i][b]Age:[/b][/i][/u] 34 [u][i][b]Home City:[/b][/i][/u] Raleigh, North Carolina. [u][i][b]Pre-fall occupation (if any)[/b][/i][/u]: Community Protection Teams, later US Army [u][i][b]Rank:[/b][/i][/u] Staff Sergeant [u][i][b]Military Doctrine:[/b][/i][/u] Operative: Combat Medic [u][i][b]Appearance:[/b][/i][/u] [hider=Photo] [IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/2woap7d.jpg[/IMG] [/hider] Jason stands at about 6 feet even, with broad shoulders and a well-muscled body. He’s not nearly as cut as he was in his younger days, but the demands of being a part of the elite STG require that he keep himself in top physical condition. His hair is worn fairly long, longer than military regulation allows for regular line soldiers, and was once black but now streaked with grey. He shirks the clean shaven look in favor of an equally salt and pepper beard, and his face shows the lines of a man nearing middle age as well as the stress brought on by someone who lived through the entire calamity. His eyes are a plain brown color, a bit of crow’s feet at the corners. He generally as a fairly relaxed expression on his face as well. His body has its fair share of scars earned the war and riots prior to, and the only other defining feature of him from other people is a full sleeve tattoo of various designs in black and grey ink all along his right arm, that extends onto his right pectoral muscle and his right shoulder-blade. [u][i][b]Equipment:[/b][/i][/u] [hider=Armor] [IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/2exujgz.jpg[/IMG] Mk III EIA (Enhanced Infantry Armor) gives Jason good protection against small arms fire, while restricting his mobility as little as possible. Soft, Kevlar and nano-fiber weave covers the insides of his limbs, while a hard shell of armor gives more protection to the outside. His torso also has an armor plate at the chest and back to give protection to his internal organs. The helmet system is highly sophisticated, with a powerful communications array hooked into his personal radio, a HUD that displays his current azimuth of travel and grid coordinate, as well as the location and vital readings of each of his squad mates. Additionally, if Jason or a teammate paints a target with a laser designator, the location will appear automatically within the HUD. The system is probably the most important piece of the whole suit, allowing Jason to have superior situational awareness of the battlefield during the chaos of combat. [/hider] [hider=Weapons] [url=http://xaotherion.deviantart.com/art/Weapon-turntable-Sunda-assault-rifle-596850697]Sunda Advanced Infantry Rifle[/url] [b]Sunda Advanced Infantry Rifle:[/b] Gas operated, air cooled, magazine fed weapon system chambered in 7.62mm. Bullpup designs allows for a longer barrel length to increase range and accuracy without increasing the overall length of the weapon. Able to fire in semi-automatic, as well as automatic with a rate of fire of 700-900 rounds per minute. Effective range for point targets is 700 meters, with a maximum range of 4500 meters. Jason’s rifle has been outfitted with an angled forward grip, a holographic sight, flip-up backup iron sights, and an infrared laser. [IMG]http://i63.tinypic.com/xqfam8.jpg[/IMG] [b]Razor Industries Blackhawk Revolver:[/b] Single and double action revolver chambered in .500 Magnum, able to hold 6 rounds within the cylinder. Cylinders can be preloaded and replaced for quicker reload times or each round can be inserted manually into the chambers. The perfect weapon for when you want to blow a fist sized hole in someone…and the person behind him….and the wall behind him. Worn in a drop-leg holster on Jason’s right side. [IMG]http://i65.tinypic.com/est940.jpg[/IMG] High carbon steel blade with laser sharpened edge, carbon fiber and nylon grip with rubberized non-slick coating. Overall length is 9 inches. Jason carries his knife sheathed across his lower back, grip facing to the left for a quick left-handed draw. [IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/2wdwy0g.jpg[/IMG] [b]Talon Tactical Axe:[/b] a fifteen-inch utility tool with a 5-inch blade, poll spike, and carbon and nylon glass filled handles. The butt of the axe is beveled and able to be used as a pry bar if needed. The perfect tool for entry purposes, whether its breaking windows, locks, cutting through thin walls, or smashing faces. Worn on Jason’s left hip in a quick release sheath. [/hider] [hider=Other Equipment] [b]Aid Bag:[/b] The most important thing that Jason carries is his Aid Bag filled with surplus medical supplies. Whether he needs to resupply the first aid kits of his team, or needs extra tourniquets and gauze; it’s in the bag. He even has some duct tape, rubber tubing, staples, and glue for when things get really bad and he has to get creative. [b]Fragmentation and Flash Grenades:[/b] Jason carries a standard infantry loadout of fragmentation and flash grenades. [b]Cigarettes: [/b]Lots of them… Photograph of his daughter [/hider] [u][i][b]Training:[/b][/i][/u] Served in the Community Protection Teams in Raleigh prior to the war, serving as extra man-power for police forces to suppress rioters and vandals. Was drafted into the war in 2130 to fight off the Machines, were he was trained very quickly as a Combat Medic and shipped off with an Infantry Company. [u][i][b]Skills:[/b][/i][/u] His medical skills are better than your average soldier, but he’s no brain surgeon. He can stitch wounds, bandage cuts, stop bleeding, set bones, and deal with shock and concussion easily. He can even perform minor surgeries given the right amount of time and equipment, and has pulled bullets and shrapnel from his squad mates bodies and stopped internal bleeding more than once in dire situations. Other than that, he’s just as good of a marksman as anyone else accepted into the STG, just as good at hand-to-hand combat and tactical situations. Jason isn’t a genius, but his older age and combat time gives him a wealth of experience and intuition about situations that give him an edge over younger, more eager and aggressive soldiers. Jason is [i]really [/i]good at one thing though, something that makes him a highly prized ally in any field combat unit even more so than his medical training. Jason can cook some excellent chow. Even when given just some sticks and rocks and the most basic of field rations, somehow Jason is able to cobble together something that tastes far better than the original product. He can also tell a mean dad joke. [u][i][b]Personality:[/b][/i][/u] Jason is the definition of laid back. He is always cool and collected, usually a small smile on his face as if thinking about some old joke someone told him once. He approaches everything with a casual attitude, sometimes to the point where people think he may not be taking the situation at hand seriously. No problem is too big, no issue too catastrophic to make freak out necessary, Jason is always there to offer a smile and a nod when someone is getting stressed out. He gives advice freely, but only when asked, otherwise keeping his opinions to himself and preferring to allow others to find their own way while he finds his. This does not apply to that lives and well-being of his squad, as Jason is very devoted to ensuring that each of his team members are healthy and operating at peak performance. In combat he will do anything short of endangering more lives in order to reach a fallen comrade, and drag them to safety. He is also heavily addicted to tobacco, and is hardly ever seen without a cigarette hanging from his lips. [u][i][b]Backstory:[/b][/i][/u] “This thing on? Oh yea I see the red light now. Ahem…well I guess I will just start out at the beginning. My name is Jason Kross, born in 2103 a couple dozen miles outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. The name of the town isn’t important, no one will remember it anyway and it’s just a heap of ash now. I remember the first time I saw a machine. No not a [i]machine[/i], but a [i]Machine[/i], the precursor versions of the things that now dominate the surface. My dad brought one home when I was what….12 years old? Yea it was about then. Back then it didn’t look so scary, just a big metal and plastic man. I think its name was Troy or something…anyway I remember not really being too concerned with it. It just moved around the house, doing all the chores that I used to do, so really I felt like it was pretty awesome. I think everyone did at first… Fast forward a few years, and here I am, a teenage kid flunked out of high school, unemployed, and full of spite and testosterone. It was hard to get jobs then, the machines made labor so easy and cheap, and nearly everyone lost their jobs. As a punk teenager without a diploma I was totally screwed, so of course I did what every other kid did. Looked for ways to get in trouble. I fell in with a rough crowd: drugs, vandalism, petty theft. Got my ass in the sling a few times too, but since I was a minor no one seemed to care. Everyone was too concerned with what was being called the Synthetic Debate. This was the time were everyone was too busy arguing about whether a robot had rights to really care about much else. There were riots, which of course I was a part of, not because I cared but because I was angry and they were angry and throwing bricks at cops and smashing in robot faces made me feel like a badass. Kids are pretty stupid. So there I was, at the bottom of the barrel of life, kicked out of my parents’ house, struggling to find a place to sleep, and usually too high or drunk to hold down the crappy jobs I could get for more than a week at a time. Future looked pretty grim back then. I probably would’ve ended up like a lot of the degenerates and been found face down in a gutter or eating a bullet. Life is funny though. I got a call when I was about 20 years old. Didn’t even get a chance to say hello before I heard four words that changed my life forever. [b][i]You are a father[/i][/b]. Turns out some girl I had been with a bit ago got pregnant, and I was the father to a little baby girl, Haley. In fact, this whole audio diary was her idea in the first place, something to keep in touch with her while I’m out on these missions all the time. Well that phone call snapped something in me. It made me take a hard look at myself, made me want to become someone that my daughter could look up to. I cleaned up, detoxed, and went to the one place I knew would always be looking for workers. The CPTs. Oh right those don’t exist anymore…Community Protection Teams. Basically around that time things were getting pretty bad in the streets. People rioting occasionally, vandalism, muggings and the like. CPTs started off with just a bunch of regular guys getting together and deciding to try and make their communities safer. Started out really small, just a few people, but as unemployment rose and crime got worse and worse they started to supplement the manpower of police forces. The pay was shit of course, but I got free meals at the chow hall and could sleep at the bunkhouse so it was better than the streets. Me and Haley’s mom, Sarah, got married. No ceremony, just some witnesses and a judge. No way we could afford a fancy wedding. I did shave though. One of my CPT buddies offered his shed to us while we got on our feet, and we lived in that crappy one room hut with our baby girl. Life was looking a lot better, but this isn’t a fairy tale. All things come to an end eventually. Seven years later, war started. I had already been on a basically permanent status those days since the rioting and crime was so bad the police couldn’t handle it. So we became halfway cops and helped control the population. When the war broke out the Army came to our city, looking for more men to sign up and join them on the front lines and fight off the Great Enemy. Interesting how only a decade or so before the Machines were just like kitchen appliances and now they were the enemy. Like suddenly the toaster murders your wife. And I said looking for more men, but really what I meant was getting more men. They rounded up the cops and CPTs and anyone else they could get, drafting us into the service and sending us off to Basic Training. One moment I’m home every night with my wife and daughter, the next I’m at boot camp in Fort Benning, Georgia getting my head shaved like a cue ball and being made to do more push-ups than I think I ever had done my whole life. Our training was short, just enough time to teach us how to obey orders and not shoot ourselves in the foot, before we were rushed to advanced training. I was selected as a Combat Medic, not sure why. Maybe it was my excellent bedside manner. New job, new base, off to Fort Sam Houston, Texas. I hadn’t seen Sarah and Haley in over 4 months. Letters and video calls were about the closest thing we ever had to a family then. I won’t bore you with any of the training, doesn’t matter much. But within 6 months I had graduated, officially a US Army Soldier, marching across the field in my combat gear, Sarah and now 7 year old Haley waving to me in the crowd. Surprisingly, despite never having wanted to be in the Army, I felt good. Felt proud. Felt like I was doing something worthwhile with my life finally and going to be able to provide for my family. Pride doesn’t stop bullets. I haven’t seen a hell since like I had when I hit the front lines with Bravo Company, 3-15 Infantry Battalion. Men died by the score, cut down by whatever cobbled together pieces of junk the Machines had managed to make into a working weapon. Can you imagine fighting an enemy that doesn’t ever get tired, hungry, or feel fear? Their army didn’t need supply lines, they didn’t need field hospitals or R&R. We were hopelessly outmatched by things we had created. Looking back, I’m actually really surprised we held out for as long as we did. I watched a lot of good guys die before the brass finally made the call to nuke the bastards. At that point I didn’t care, burn ‘em all, just let me get home alive and get my family safe. Being military, we were made a priority for the evacuations as the bombs dropped. I heard a lot of people didn’t make it though. The sad story doesn’t end there. Sarah and I ended up splitting up after the war was over. A lot of time had passed, and we both had changed. The stress of the war on both of us made things too hard. Like I said before, life isn’t a fairy-tale, and no one really lives happily ever after. I still had Haley though, and as humanity sought shelter underground I made sure to use my military connections to arrange a place for them in the closest city, UGC-Theta. I followed, wanting to be close to my daughter. I got asked by one of my commanders to try out for a new unit the government was putting together, something called the Shadow Tasks Group. At first I said no. I had my fill of war. I just wanted a quiet life to spend time with my daughter until the world ended. I ended up getting into a conversation over a few beers with a fellow veteran of the war, talking about the shit we went through and what happens now. He said [i][b]“This new STG might be the only thing that helps us stand a chance of fixing what’s been broke.”[/b][/i] Well…after that, a few more beers, and some deep thinking, I went back to my commander and filled out my packet. Told myself that maybe I didn’t care about saving the world for myself, but Haley didn’t deserve to grow old underground and in fear.” [/hider]