Gunther

Gooooood Moooorning Viiiieeetnaaaaam!

That is wonderful, HeySeuss. I am glad that he felt comfortable enough to open up to you. I tried to talk to a WWII veteran, my brother-in-law's father. He served with the 8th Infantry Division in France. He was with an Infantry battalion's Anti-Tank platoon. They used 57mm AT guns, towed by 6x6 trucks or jeeps. He would not say anything to me about it. In fact, he later told my sister to please ask me to not question him about his experiences. It saddened me greatly. He died about three years ago. :(

Gooooood Moooorning Viiiieeetnaaaaam!

I've had decades to study and interview people on the subject. Everyone from mech-infantry, LOACH-pilots, paymasters, and coast gaurdsmen, to fighter stick jockies and pig-gunners.
-I've been told it gets annoying when I try getting into the specifics, as some of them had the luck of Jack Lucas and John Ripley.

@Foster

I feel your angst, Foster. I spent 21 years in uniform and have been reading military history books and articles for almost 43 years. I didn't need to interview anyone. I lived it. But I have had thousands of conversations with combat veterans over a tall cold one.

We all -liked the idea- and signed on. That means being supportive. If you want, we could have a different GM per scenario? Or you can just run it and we can support you here.

@HeySeuss

@Lady Selune What he said is spot on! ^

Gooooood Moooorning Viiiieeetnaaaaam!

Yea, I watched that video a month or so ago. That was pretty ballsy going to Vietnam during the war as a Civilian.

Soviet Amerika - Red Dawn-Inspired Alternate History

Ben's brother, Preston could be a second character, but I intend to only treat him as an NPC for now.

Soviet Amerika - Red Dawn-Inspired Alternate History

Name: Benjamin Giguere
Nick: "Ben" or "Gigger"
Gender: Male
Age: 33

Appearance: Ben is not handsome. He stands 5' 9" tall and weighs 170 Lbs. His muscles are taut from years of working a farm or pounding spikes on the railroad. He has steel gray eyes and short brown hair which is usually dirty. His fingernails are normally black and/or filled with grease. Gigger normally wears blue dickies, solid colored T-shirts and Red Wing steel toed boots. He chews tobacco frequently and you might find traces of partially chewed tobacco in his chin stubble or drippings on his T-shirt.

Gigger

Bio: Ben Giguere was born and raised in Bellows Falls, Vermont, not far from the Connecticut River. His father was an avid Red Sox fan and would take young Benjamin to the country store in North Walpole, New Hampshire just to get a glimpse of "Pudge", Carlton Fisk after his retirement from the White Sox in 1993.

Ben's father, Paul owned a farm in the hills south of Bellows Falls not far from the Railroad tracks and the river. Farming in Vermont is difficult; you go to work before the sun comes up and you finish long after the sun goes down. Paul Giguere was disciplined about the farm and kept at it all day long. When Ben was not in school, doing homework or sleeping, he was helping his old man on the farm.

Often times while out harrowing a field, bailing hay or harvesting field corn, Paul would tell his son that he should look into working for the Central Vermont Railroad which ran along the eastern edge of their property. Ben rarely took his father's suggestions seriously, but tended to his work regardless. When Ben graduated from Bellows Falls Union High School, he never looked back. He did play Defensive Back for The Terriers and outfield on the baseball team, but never good enough to go to College. Nor were his grades all that impressive; lucky to have all Cs.

He went to work for his father full time after school, but found being around dad all day to be irritating; cramping his style. He quietly drove down to the railroad office for the Green Mountain Railway located in North Walpole to inquire about employment. He was told they were not hiring, but that he should check with the New England Central in St. Albans, VT. He was given a phone number to call.

Following a two-week process, Ben hired onto the New England Central Railroad, formerly the Central Vermont in 2002. He took a job working as a Track Maintenance Technician. This meant he would have to inspect portions of the rail that ran from the Canadian border north of St. Albans, south to the Massachusetts border at Vernon, VT. He learned the job working with an experienced trackman. He and three other rode in the same "High railer" inspecting track and replacing 100-pound and 130-pound rail where it was needed. Every year they also engaged in replacing the large wooden ties, soaked in creosote. It was usually, the hottest day of the summer when they were working the tie job.

Paul Giguere and his sons Benjamin and Preston who was two years younger than Ben always looked forward to Deer hunting season in late November and early December. The nice thing about Vermont is they have a Rifle Season. Unfortunately, their Massachusetts neighbors to the south only have shotgun season. This tends to send a flock of clueless flatlanders north into the hills of Vermont to get lost. There were more than a few times when Ben and his father and brother would run across a flatlander winded somewhere west of Windsor Mountain searching for the way out of the woods. They would offer their assistance and help the godforsaken clueless bastards out, and then laugh at them behind their backs later on. It made for some funny stories.

His favorite hunting rifle was a Marlin .30-.30 lever action rifle. His dad used a Marlin 336C in .35 cal. Both rifles had 7x50 scopes mounted on them. His brother, Preston used a Remington .30-06 which also had a 7x50 scope mounted on it.

After the Russians invaded, things did not go well for Ben. His parents, Paul Giguere and wife Lauren were killed from an automobile accident on Interstate 91. The death of his parents devastated Ben. He viewed the Russian invasion with hatred. Although, the invasion did not directly cause his parent's death, it did facilitate it. With the presence of Russians in Bellows Falls, Ben took to the hills in search of a group he heard about one day at work. He put together his standard hunting kit along with a few extra supplies. He also took his 31 year old brother, Preston with him.

Psychological Profile: Ben never cared for politics, as was his attitude toward school in general. He focused on his work and his hobbies. He enjoyed working, whether it be farming or track maintenance and he loved hunting. Ben's father, Paul was firm while raising his two sons, but fair. He was never too hard on them, but didn't let them slide by either. He made them work for everything they achieved and this has shown through in their personalities. Both boys are quiet and polite. They are hard to rattle.

Ben really doesn't have an opinion of the current situation other than he knows the Soviet invasion is bad. He would like to help return Vermont and the US back to the way it used to be. He is willing to fight to bring back the USA.

Skillset/Occupation:
- experienced at farming
- tractor & automotive maintenance
- hunting; skilled with a hunting rifle
"I can put a round through a flea's ass at five hundred yards."
- Railroad infrastructure; rail cars, ties, switches, rail head and bridges.
- welding
- canning (fruits and vegetables)
- cooking (on a stove or outdoors)
- Winter survival skills
- stripping a recently killed animal, smoking and drying the meat.
- tracking prey
- knowledge of the topography and geography of central & southern Vermont.
- snowshoeing

Equipment: Hunting pack, sleeping bag, Mess kit, fork, knife, spoon, spare socks, spare T-shirts, candles, box of 500 matches, two bic lighters, two cans of WD-40, roll of duct tape, two spare pair of dickies, four spare T-shirts, olive drab green field jacket used for hunting, olive drab green field pants with cargo pockets also used for hunting, two sets of long underwear with extra heavy wool socks, wet weather poncho, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, brown towel, razor, shave cream, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss, cross tip screw driver, flat head screwdriver, pliers, adjustable wrench, wire cutters, 2-quart bladder canteen, quart bottle of Jim Beam Whiskey, roll of Copenhagen chewing tobacco, flashlight with spare batteries, 150 feet of half inch rope and a Boston Red Sox Baseball cap with a rolled, rounded bill, filthy & worn at the brim.

Weapons:
- Marlin .30-.30 lever action rifle
- Ruger Redhawk .44 Caliber Revolver
- 9" hunting knife
- Survival knife
- Swiss Army pocket knife

Relationships and Acquaintances:
Daniel Martin

Calla Shepard

Joe Sullivan

Soviet Amerika - Red Dawn-Inspired Alternate History

Hello @BoyMom035 I read your bio and can appreciate this line:

I'm a 28 year old female that stays at home with the kids. I have 3 boys, 4 if you count my husband XD

@BoyMom035

I am a stay at home parent too. I have three daughters and one son. What's cool about it is, I also am the oldest kid. It is like my wife has five kids, not four. But at least possess the maturity to be responsible. I guess I should feel complimented that she leaves the house to go to work with me alone with the kids. :)

Nice to meet you, ma'am.

Soviet Amerika - Red Dawn-Inspired Alternate History

@HeySeuss Originally created this character 9/15/2012; the last time you ran this RP. He was 28 when I initially wrote this CS.

Name: Benjamin Giguere
Nick: "Ben" or "Gigger"
Gender: Male
Age: 33

Appearance: Ben is not handsome. He stands 5' 9" tall and weighs 170 Lbs. His muscles are taut from years of working a farm or pounding spikes on the railroad. He has steel gray eyes and short brown hair which is usually dirty. His fingernails are normally black and/or filled with grease. Gigger normally wears blue dickies, solid colored T-shirts and Red Wing steel toed boots. He chews tobacco frequently and you might find traces of partially chewed tobacco in his chin stubble or drippings on his T-shirt.

Gigger

Bio: Ben Giguere was born and raised in Bellows Falls, Vermont, not far from the Connecticut River. His father was an avid Red Sox fan and would take young Benjamin to the country store in North Walpole, New Hampshire just to get a glimpse of "Pudge", Carlton Fisk after his retirement from the White Sox in 1993.

Ben's father, Paul owned a farm in the hills south of Bellows Falls not far from the Railroad tracks and the river. Farming in Vermont is difficult; you go to work before the sun comes up and you finish long after the sun goes down. Paul Giguere was disciplined about the farm and kept at it all day long. When Ben was not in school, doing homework or sleeping, he was helping his old man on the farm.

Often times while out harrowing a field, bailing hay or harvesting field corn, Paul would tell his son that he should look into working for the Central Vermont Railroad which ran along the eastern edge of their property. Ben rarely took his father's suggestions seriously, but tended to his work regardless. When Ben graduated from Bellows Falls Union High School, he never looked back. He did play Defensive Back for The Terriers and outfield on the baseball team, but never good enough to go to College. Nor were his grades all that impressive; lucky to have all Cs.

He went to work for his father full time after school, but found being around dad all day to be irritating; cramping his style. He quietly drove down to the railroad office for the Green Mountain Railway located in North Walpole to inquire about employment. He was told they were not hiring, but that he should check with the New England Central in St. Albans, VT. He was given a phone number to call.

Following a two-week process, Ben hired onto the New England Central Railroad, formerly the Central Vermont in 2002. He took a job working as a Track Maintenance Technician. This meant he would have to inspect portions of the rail that ran from the Canadian border north of St. Albans, south to the Massachusetts border at Vernon, VT. He learned the job working with an experienced trackman. He and three other rode in the same "High railer" inspecting track and replacing 100-pound and 130-pound rail where it was needed. Every year they also engaged in replacing the large wooden ties, soaked in creosote. It was usually, the hottest day of the summer when they were working the tie job.

Paul Giguere and his sons Benjamin and Preston who was two years younger than Ben always looked forward to Deer hunting season in late November and early December. The nice thing about Vermont is they have a Rifle Season. Unfortunately, their Massachusetts neighbors to the south only have shotgun season. This tends to send a flock of clueless flatlanders north into the hills of Vermont to get lost. There were more than a few times when Ben and his father and brother would run across a flatlander winded somewhere west of Windsor Mountain searching for the way out of the woods. They would offer their assistance and help the godforsaken clueless bastards out, and then laugh at them behind their backs later on. It made for some funny stories.

His favorite hunting rifle was a Marlin .30-.30 lever action rifle. His dad used a Marlin 336C in .35 cal. Both rifles had 7x50 scopes mounted on them. His brother, Preston used a Remington .30-06 which also had a 7x50 scope mounted on it.

After the Russians invaded, things did not go well for Ben. His parents, Paul Giguere and wife Lauren were killed from an automobile accident on Interstate 91. The death of his parents devastated Ben. He viewed the Russian invasion with hatred. Although, the invasion did not directly cause his parent's death, it did facilitate it. With the presence of Russians in Bellows Falls, Ben took to the hills in search of a group he heard about one day at work. He put together his standard hunting kit along with a few extra supplies. He also took his 26 year old brother, Preston with him.

Psychological Profile: Ben never cared for politics, as was his attitude toward school in general. He focused on his work and his hobbies. He enjoyed working, whether it be farming or track maintenance and he loved hunting. Ben's father, Paul was firm while raising his two sons, but fair. He was never too hard on them, but didn't let them slide by either. He made them work for everything they achieved and this has shown through in their personalities. Both boys are quiet and polite. They are hard to rattle.

Ben really doesn't have an opinion of the current situation other than he knows the Soviet invasion is bad. He would like to help return Vermont and the US back to the way it used to be. He is willing to fight to bring back the USA.

Skillset/Occupation:
- experienced at farming
- tractor & automotive maintenance
- hunting; skilled with a hunting rifle
"I can put a round through a flea's ass at five hundred yards."
- Railroad infrastructure; rail cars, ties, switches, rail head and bridges.
- welding
- canning (fruits and vegetables)
- cooking (on a stove or outdoors)
- Winter survival skills
- stripping a recently killed animal, smoking and drying the meat.
- tracking prey
- knowledge of the topography and geography of central & southern Vermont.
- snowshoeing

Equipment: Hunting pack, sleeping bag, Mess kit, fork, knife, spoon, spare socks, spare T-shirts, candles, box of 500 matches, two bic lighters, two cans of WD-40, roll of duct tape, two spare pair of dickies, four spare T-shirts, olive drab green field jacket used for hunting, olive drab green field pants with cargo pockets also used for hunting, two sets of long underwear with extra heavy wool socks, wet weather poncho, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, brown towel, razor, shave cream, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss, cross tip screw driver, flat head screwdriver, pliers, adjustable wrench, wire cutters, 2-quart bladder canteen, quart bottle of Jim Beam Whiskey, roll of Copenhagen chewing tobacco, flashlight with spare batteries, 150 feet of half inch rope and a Boston Red Sox Baseball cap with a rolled, rounded bill, filthy & worn at the brim.

Weapons:
- Marlin .30-.30 lever action rifle
- Ruger Redhawk .44 Caliber Revolver
- 9" hunting knife
- Survival knife
- Swiss Army pocket knife

Relationships and Acquaintances:
TBD

Soviet Amerika - Red Dawn-Inspired Alternate History

I'm going to step outside my comfort zone and post a Non-veteran character. I enlisted in the US Army 35 years ago and have no idea what it would be like to NOT have those years of accumulated experience.

Gooooood Moooorning Viiiieeetnaaaaam!

Gene Hackman and Danny Glover. That was a good movie, I agree, HeySeuss. I like the use of the Golf Courses to determine direction and distances for each leg of his journey. Wasn't the Mike Force the focus of the John Wayne Movie, Green Berets?

Gooooood Moooorning Viiiieeetnaaaaam!

I don't know if I have the time, but I'll give it a shot.
Responding to @HeySeuss query.

I appreciate HS's question about the regions and your response to move around Vietnam. The only units that would do that are Super Secret Special Operations units, possibly working directly for MAC-V. Or are we going to do a series of vignettes with different characters each time assigned to different units? I guess what I'm trying to say is, if we are all members of some LRRP team in the 173rd Airborne Brigade (as an example) assigned to Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon. This Brigade would not do operations in other Areas of Operations (AO). The Brigade was a Corps level asset which allowed them to operate in a larger area than a division, but still, they were restricted as to where they would go.

If you are suggesting we write all new characters assigned to different units every time we jump to a different region, sure, that's sounds cool. MAC-V (Military Assistance Command-Vietnam), is the theater command echelon containing the four-star general (William Westmoreland, initialy and later Creighton Abrams) commanding all US Armed forces in Vietnam. They have a unit that is not an entire corps of 50,000+ Joes that could go just about anywhere in Vietnam. That unit is the 5th Special Forces Group. They operate in 8-12 man teams lead by a Captain (đại úy - pronounced Die-Wee), 1st Lieutenant (XO) and a Master Sergeant (NCOIC) and spend most of their time working with indigenous populations (i.e.: the Montagnards) training them how to fight against the NVA and VC. They occasionally were tasked with direct action missions like assassinations or raids.