[img]http://www.atxfestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Anson-Mount.jpg[/img]

Name: Owen Reece

Occupation/Crew Position: pilot of a mining craft 

Age: 39

Description: About 6 feet even and around 200 lbs, having put on a few since getting out of the army, he is built solid and strong. Pale gray eyes, brown hair and a dimple when he smiles on his right cheek. He has a farmer's tan from the time he spent outside.

Background: Reece was born in a small coal mining town in southern West Virginia, to a family with a long history of mining that stretched back centuries and across an ocean. When he was in high school, he took a job with his father and uncles down in the mines. Though technology made it safer, there was no escaping dark, enclosed space of the mines. He worked, played football, got into trouble and managed to graduate high school.

Without money for college he did as many young men do in poverty stricken places, he joined the military. In the army, he became fascinated with helicopters and thought it a nice change to be up in the air rather than underground. He became a warrant officer and piloted Blackhawks in rescue, recon, transport and security missions. By age 21, he was a lead pilot and spent ten years flying for the Army. He retired earlier than he would have liked after his helicopter was shot down on a rescue mission and he lose half his crew and injured his back which required surgery and titanium rods. His flying career was over and rather than going home he went out into Colorado, where he had been stationed. He blamed himself and wallowed in the misery of being haunted by the men he failed to get to safety and the young crew that had died, including WO Lisa Kelly, a bright young woman with a love for her job and a new husband and one of his crew chiefs, a young man who came from a poor urban background and had become an unlikely friend to the redneck pilot. He mourned the loss of his career and the love he had for flying, belieiving he would probably never have the opportunity again.

Solace he found in a whiskey bottle and a wife he hardly saw serving him with divorce papers. He had married her early in his army career when he was training in Ft. Rucker, Alabama, believing she was pregnant with his child. Shortly after their union, she miscarried. It was downhill from there, but Reece had made a committment and hoped it would work out. Eventually, they both preferred when he was deployed and he found himself signing up for anything that would take him away from home. They had no children and he suspected she cheated on him a number of times and found he did not care when she left. It had been a marriage out of the fact she had wanted to be married and Reece was away on duty most of the time. 

Reece had to spend weeks in recovery after surgery but once he was let go, he retreated into the wilds of Colorado. He spent weeks hunting and fishing, hiking and being alone. He grew out his hair and beard, hiding the last traces of his former Army life. Finally, in need of funds and feeling better, he got a job with a mining company and went back to his roots. Rather than coal though, he was mining for gold. Once the romanticism wore off he found a higher paying job in the line of natural gas mining where he became an expert at the running the drills. 

When the Change began, the wacko eco nuts in the area belonging to a radical environmental group called Green Guardians began to blame the fracking and oil/gas drillers and there were incidents of violence between them. Owen Reece had caught a couple of them trying to destroy his multi million dollar machine and ended up beating one of them badly, enough to land him in jail. Luckily for him the judge was sympathetic and likely owned stock in the company and had let him off with probation. His company was forced to fire him because the incident recieved bad press, despite the fact the GG had committed vandalism. Out of work and his back always hurting, he found his options limited. A proud man who hated to ask for help, he got a job delivering pizza to make ends meet until a chance encounter with an old friend. A former fellow pilot, WO Troy McMahon who now worked for a place known cryptically as the Mountain, offered Reece a job. It would take him back into mining and perhaps even flying. The pay and benefits were incredible and there was a chance they could fix his back nearly as good as new. Reece jumped at the chance and within the week, was hired and moving his meager possesions and his pickup truck to Wyoming. (WIP, facts subject to change)

Personality: 

Owen Reece is a born rascal, a joker and a man who loves his vices. He is generally rough humored and friendly on the surface but it takes awhile for him to trust anyone, until he has judged their worth by their actions. He is free with his opinions and cares little for things like rank, learning in the army that bars and stars on turds didn't make them any less a turd. 

Habits: A long time smoker who had to give it up, he keeps a seemingly endless supply of toothpicks in his pocket for his oral fixation. He still drinks, having learned a long time ago as a teen how to make rot gut moonshine which was pretty much ubiquitous in the poor WV country he grew up in. He's a gambler, in particular poker, and has a habit of betting on the outcome of things no matter how trivial or deadly. He likes old music and frequently hums or whistles songs, his favorite on this journey being "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band.

Scars/Tattoos: Surgical scar along his spine, about 8 inches long in his lower back; a large scar on his left thigh from the crash; various nicks on his hands and forearms from the manual labor he did most of his life. A tattoo on his left bicep with his old unit's badge and two memorial scrolls for his friends that died. Above it is n older tattoo of a skull with a crossed shovel and pickax behind it from his mining days. 

Personal Items: His personal notebook, full of music files, some pictures, and a few games and books. A deck of well worn cards, a pair of dice, and his old dog tags. A smuggled bottle of Jack Daniels, an economy sized box of toothpicks, and a hunting knife that belonged to his father.