04-24-2014, 02:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-25-2018, 04:57 PM by Jay Carpenter.)
Jay "Hollywood" Carpenter
Occupation:
Corporal, Fox company 3rd Marine Raiders Battalion
Legionnaire 1e Classe, Légion Première
Biography:
In high school, everyone called him Carp. Everyone meaning all the teachers, guys and nerdy girls. The hot girls were apparently too high and mighty for nicknames, but it served to keep things straight in his head.
"Carp!"
and Jay eventually glanced up, if he wasn't doing something more fun that is.
As opposed to:
"Jay!"
and he lept to his feet. "Yes, hot girl?!"
Fine, so out loud he was smoother than that, but the stream of consciousness was all the same.
High school was great. By graduation, he was sure life had piqued. An all-star athlete, captain of the baseball team, and prom king he was a god in their podunk Iowa farmtown. Best yet, he knew it too. But Jay liked to think he stayed humble. He danced with one of the nerdy chicks at Prom. Sure it was mostly about a dare, but a good dare was irresistible, as was nerdy chick's cleavage.
"Would you like to dance,
[insert nerdy chick's name he clearly can't remember]?"
[Insert nerdy chick melting into his arms]
The prom queen made him pay for it later. But no complaints from Jay. Technically it was her idea.
So high school was the peak. The summer following graduation was spent pouring over college acceptance letters. He even spent a weekend over at Iowa City with a few of the gang intending to enroll for the fall. But every time someone asked him about college, Jay felt like he was going to have diarrhea. College. Sounded. Like. Hell. Not even the lure of college girls, college bars, and college towns could reduce the sting.
So he spent the summer working on the farm like always. Six am. Five am. By harvest season, he was up at four am, although that was really nothing new. He'd been working the fields since he was old enough to drive a tractor - bailed hay before that - and shucked corn before that. Hell, people around there gave babies water-soaked cobs to chew on for teething. The farm was in his blood; and had been since his great-grandparents bought the land right after WWII.
Soon, the "What are you going to do with your life, Jay?"'s
stopped coming. Mom and dad assumed he'd be down at the barn every morning, good and reliable, like always. Come Thanksgiving, after harvest season, burning season, and turning the fields were done, Jay was at the dinner table, and talk of the following year's planting season started. Dad and grandpa were debating round-up brands. Mom and Aunt Sarah were talking Black Friday shopping over in Des Moines. Uncle Cooper and Coach Swanson (the neighbor [neighbor being the closest house a mile west down their dirt road]) were talking about the dwindling football season, and prospects for the spring baseball line up. Apparently they already forgot there was a state all-star shortstop sitting at the table.
It was over a plate of apple pie (extra whip cream) when he freaked out. He sat there, fork half way to his mouth, and realized he was living the exact life he always dreaded. From prom king and all star to tractors and pie. Although the pie wasn't that bad of a fate. (He made sure to finish that plate, and a piece of cherry while he was at it.)
"Mom, I want to go to Des Moines with you and Aunt Sarah tomorrow,"
he spoke up between bites. "And this is great pie,"
he mumbled with a smile to put her at ease. It probably only served to heighten her suspicion, but sure enough, he was in the truck heading to town the next morning.
"YOU DID WHAT!"
His father was still screaming. Dad could yell at him all he wanted, but what really stuck a burr in Jay's chest was the look on his mom's face. She'd been surprised when he met them at the mall with a bag slung over one shoulder with MARINES printed on the outside, but she'd been eerily quiet all the way back. Aunt Sarah, who sat in the middle of the truck and tried to mediate the whole uncomfortable ride back home, had asked him questions and tried to figure out what made Jay suddenly enlist.
Jay scrubbed his hair and stood up to his dad, "What's done is done. You don't want a son to serve his country?"
His dad's face melted of its anger. He grabbed him, and the two men slammed each other into a hug.
"Of course, son. But you should have talked to us about it first."
Jay pat his dad on the back, "I was afraid you'd talk me out of it."
His dad clapped him on the back of his head and turned him about to face his mother. "Its not me you would have had to worry about it."
Ahh shit. That's when he felt like a real dick.
Of course, they got over it and the day Jay shipped out for training was a good day. Flags were flying. The sky was bright blue. People were waving, and he felt like a million bucks.
Yeah that didn't last long.
MCRD, San Diego - or what was left of San Diego. First day of recruit training didn't go so well. He wasn't processed until around 8 PM, and took until 4:30 AM to finish. He was dropped off in barracks only to be woken 25 minutes later for first drill. He was scared to death that's how the marines were going to be from then on out! Turns out, they were allowed more than 25 minutes of sleep a night. And farm kids were used to early hours. He adapted quickly. Don't tell the instructors, but recruit training was about the most fun he'd ever had in his life.
Granted, it was a bit of a learning curve to straighten out the small town, cocky kid's attitude, but Jay eventually figured out the game, and played to expectations. The hills of San Diego, originally so fascinating to an Iowa boy, soon became a bloodied, mewling thing to conquer. Aching legs and burning lungs became the norm, but the rugged landscape did their work, and cut something semi-useful out of the high school star athlete.
When Jay left San Diego, he walked tall, shoulders back, and looking straight ahead. He knew there was nothing in the world he couldn't accomplish after those twelve weeks. Jay never lacked in self-worth, but walking out of there, a marine, in that uniform, he knew something was different. Least of which was the shearing of an awesomely stylish head of blonde hair, (the root of the nickname Hollywood) but he still had the famous grin and sweet baby blues. If anything, the grin was prouder and the blues brighter.
But you know, being a leatherneck had its perks. But Jay was never quite satisfied with staying still. After completion of SOI (school of infantry), he reported to the 2d Battalion, 8th Marines. While with 2/8 he deployed to Panama, twice to Polynesia, and once to South Africa and Uganda. In a Force Recon battalion, he dropped all over the world (non CCD world anyway) and gathered information between point A and point B. From there, he applied for, and was transferred into, special operations command, MARSOC. He jumped the gun a little early, applying as only a Corporal, an NCO, the minimum rank to be considered, but at 21 years old, exactly 24 months and three days after earning the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, he couldn't wait another day.
Everyone said MARSOC meant you wouldn't have a life; that you were a ghost. But Jay didn't see it that way. They were involved in foreign internal defense, hell they even trained friendly host-nation forces to defend themselves. But the real meat of the matter was to be one of the guys task-directed to conduct recon, step in with direct action, and operate missions in unconventional terrain. On top of all that cool-factor, they did so in support of a geographical combatant commander that needed an extra set of guys, sometimes even with other special forces. Basically, when the Marines had a task needed done outside their reach, they called MARSOC. They called Jay. The deployment tempo was flexible. The terrain weirder. And the missions critical. Better yet, he operated in a small, skilled and immaculately trained group of Marines bound by trust and cohesion. They were a family that dived, jumped, and blew shit up for their country. Who wouldn't fucking love it!
That was how he met Andrew Koehler. A Navy SEAL. Twenty years before then, they probably never would have known the other group was in the same country, let alone work together on a mission, but a more efficient discretionary spending budget meant the Pentagon had to stream line special operations, and that meant downsizing and buddying up with your neighbors.
Nicaragua, Central America. 0145 hours.
A Central American EvilNombre was holed up in a compound. Task was simple. Crawl out of the ocean, snatch him and lay waste to everything he owned so none of his lieutenants could take over operations after the Big Bad disappeared behind the walls of Guantanamo. It should have been clean. Recon said civilian innocents caught in the cross fire would be at a minimum. And they were cleared to go.
The SEALS had the fun task of dismantling the factory while Hollywood and three others took the compound by storm. They cracked like a whip on a rock wall, and Jay worked in a zone, like a void, where there was nothing in the world but his immediate surroundings, his guys, and the weapon in his hands. On the top floor they were met with a short round of firefight, but they quickly found EvilNombre barricaded in an interior room. The second Jay realized EvilNombre was using a little girl as his hostage, gun to her head, he lost his infallible cool. They weren't supposed to kill him – he knew it in his bones: the mission was to take the man alive; Jay was a rifleman and definitely not in charge. But the tears streaming down her face twisted his guts into a knot and something snapped in his mind no psyche test, individual training course, or dedication to the mission could have expected. He thought of the family he hadn't seen in ten months, the little sister that clung to his chest whenever he went home, and before he knew it, he fired a kill shot against direct orders.
He was stateside, Camp Lejune, N.C., one week later where he was watched like a hawk. The first time he was late for formation, he was cited. They goaded him into losing the cool he worked so hard to train away as a Recruit. But despite the setbacks, he stuck to his decision that day in Nicaragua. He'd made a decision, and fuck the order that said he was in the wrong, but he wasn't going to let a little girl be slaughtered in order to interrogate EvilNombre for bullshit intel. And, sure, he might have gone a little batshit crazy with his bayonet on the body after the fact. “YOU PIECE OF SHIT BASTARD! I’D RIP YOUR FUCKING SPLEEN OUT AND FEED IT TO YOUR DOGS! BUT I ALREADY FUCKING BLEW THEIR HEADS OFF YOU MOTHER-“
You get the idea. Suffice to say, they waited until he committed the smallest breech and suddenly he was up for Discharge, Other Than Honorable: nothing that required jail time, but harsher than general disqualification.
Of course, the mission was blacked out. Meaning he couldn't tell his family and friends back in the corn fields what happened. Koehler, and those there at the time, knew. And although they had to stick with orders, the look in their eye said otherwise. They understood. Hollywood had a soft spot, turns out, and something of a temper that only showed itself when that soft spot was threatened. Little girl hostage situations weren't a part of his training, but despite pages of psyche evals that suggested otherwise, a guy just doesn't know what he'll do until he's faced with his triggers.
Jay tried. Hand to God, but he tried to make the transition back into a civilian life. But Jay was sure to claw his own face off in Iowa. He loved being home. He loved his family. But nobody really knew what it was like. He began looking for work elsewhere. Security companies abroad and such.
That's when he found Legion Premiere. Based in North Africa, they were a for-profit corp, but digging around in their past cases and Jay was willing to bet there was more to the story than following the yellow brick road all the way to cashland.
They liked his application and statement. Jay was happy to fly to Morocco for a meet up. Good potential. It wasn't exactly serving his country, not in the same way, but after royally fucking up, he was just happy to see this side of prison. Besides, he was still a proud wearer of the red, white and blue.
At least he was able to have a decent hair cut again. And of course, the heart of gold grin to go with it.
The Legion was surprising. They were ridiculously well trained for private security, and their priorities were unexpected. They weren't too incredibly impressed by Jay's resume, then again, that meant they weren't too incredibly bothered by the circumstances of his discharge either. They must have liked his performance on the slew of tests, questions and checks that followed, because he was offered a spot, and he found himself moving to Casablanca.
Interviews, training (a breeze: although a greater focus on crowd control than he expected), and Jay "Hollywood" Carpenter was in the Legion assigned to the African contingent. Although he had an eye on the DV division, word of their African missions was what started this business. So, Africa it is. Legionnaire 1e Classe was a senior private rank, but thanks to past experience in a legit professional military (yeah no shit - legit professional military), he was told to expect quick advancement. Fine by Jay. He wasn't in it for the money. There were other things he valued. Camaraderie being one. Loyalty another. And being part of an elite unit that managed to do something in the world. Fidelity and Honor was their code. "The Legion is our Fatherland"
, their motto felt strange at first, expressing undying loyalty to something other than the Red White and Blue ’Always faithful, always forward,’ still rang in his head to this day, but Jay didn't see it as abandoning his country. He saw it as joining the world - or something equivalently pansy that he'd never actually admit to another living soul. Ever.
Though he wasn't too big a fan of their dress uniforms, he made those bitches look good.
Physical:
Good, average height, Jay has a lean build consistent with strict military (and his own) PT standards. He's quick to grin, but cool headed and difficult to provoke, unless touching upon the few things he holds dearest in this world, such as threatening those he feels he has a duty to protect, then he has a bit of a problem keeping his cool. Otherwise, he's a red-blooded American country boy, with hay-colored hair and cornflower blue eyes.
Powers:
Turns out, Jay can, and will, channel. He hasn't done so yet. He's 23 years old, so there's plenty of time, but it will happen. He's no reborn god either, unless you consider his own soul to be a god, which he probably does. But if he were around in the 5th or 6th Ages, he was nobody famous. Any life before that is long lost to the histories, but he was there, and he fought with all his heart for the Light, to his dying day.
Occupation:
Corporal, Fox company 3rd Marine Raiders Battalion
Legionnaire 1e Classe, Légion Première
Biography:
In high school, everyone called him Carp. Everyone meaning all the teachers, guys and nerdy girls. The hot girls were apparently too high and mighty for nicknames, but it served to keep things straight in his head.
"Carp!"
and Jay eventually glanced up, if he wasn't doing something more fun that is.
As opposed to:
"Jay!"
and he lept to his feet. "Yes, hot girl?!"
Fine, so out loud he was smoother than that, but the stream of consciousness was all the same.
High school was great. By graduation, he was sure life had piqued. An all-star athlete, captain of the baseball team, and prom king he was a god in their podunk Iowa farmtown. Best yet, he knew it too. But Jay liked to think he stayed humble. He danced with one of the nerdy chicks at Prom. Sure it was mostly about a dare, but a good dare was irresistible, as was nerdy chick's cleavage.
"Would you like to dance,
[insert nerdy chick's name he clearly can't remember]?"
[Insert nerdy chick melting into his arms]
The prom queen made him pay for it later. But no complaints from Jay. Technically it was her idea.
So high school was the peak. The summer following graduation was spent pouring over college acceptance letters. He even spent a weekend over at Iowa City with a few of the gang intending to enroll for the fall. But every time someone asked him about college, Jay felt like he was going to have diarrhea. College. Sounded. Like. Hell. Not even the lure of college girls, college bars, and college towns could reduce the sting.
So he spent the summer working on the farm like always. Six am. Five am. By harvest season, he was up at four am, although that was really nothing new. He'd been working the fields since he was old enough to drive a tractor - bailed hay before that - and shucked corn before that. Hell, people around there gave babies water-soaked cobs to chew on for teething. The farm was in his blood; and had been since his great-grandparents bought the land right after WWII.
Soon, the "What are you going to do with your life, Jay?"'s
stopped coming. Mom and dad assumed he'd be down at the barn every morning, good and reliable, like always. Come Thanksgiving, after harvest season, burning season, and turning the fields were done, Jay was at the dinner table, and talk of the following year's planting season started. Dad and grandpa were debating round-up brands. Mom and Aunt Sarah were talking Black Friday shopping over in Des Moines. Uncle Cooper and Coach Swanson (the neighbor [neighbor being the closest house a mile west down their dirt road]) were talking about the dwindling football season, and prospects for the spring baseball line up. Apparently they already forgot there was a state all-star shortstop sitting at the table.
It was over a plate of apple pie (extra whip cream) when he freaked out. He sat there, fork half way to his mouth, and realized he was living the exact life he always dreaded. From prom king and all star to tractors and pie. Although the pie wasn't that bad of a fate. (He made sure to finish that plate, and a piece of cherry while he was at it.)
"Mom, I want to go to Des Moines with you and Aunt Sarah tomorrow,"
he spoke up between bites. "And this is great pie,"
he mumbled with a smile to put her at ease. It probably only served to heighten her suspicion, but sure enough, he was in the truck heading to town the next morning.
"YOU DID WHAT!"
His father was still screaming. Dad could yell at him all he wanted, but what really stuck a burr in Jay's chest was the look on his mom's face. She'd been surprised when he met them at the mall with a bag slung over one shoulder with MARINES printed on the outside, but she'd been eerily quiet all the way back. Aunt Sarah, who sat in the middle of the truck and tried to mediate the whole uncomfortable ride back home, had asked him questions and tried to figure out what made Jay suddenly enlist.
Jay scrubbed his hair and stood up to his dad, "What's done is done. You don't want a son to serve his country?"
His dad's face melted of its anger. He grabbed him, and the two men slammed each other into a hug.
"Of course, son. But you should have talked to us about it first."
Jay pat his dad on the back, "I was afraid you'd talk me out of it."
His dad clapped him on the back of his head and turned him about to face his mother. "Its not me you would have had to worry about it."
Ahh shit. That's when he felt like a real dick.
Of course, they got over it and the day Jay shipped out for training was a good day. Flags were flying. The sky was bright blue. People were waving, and he felt like a million bucks.
Yeah that didn't last long.
MCRD, San Diego - or what was left of San Diego. First day of recruit training didn't go so well. He wasn't processed until around 8 PM, and took until 4:30 AM to finish. He was dropped off in barracks only to be woken 25 minutes later for first drill. He was scared to death that's how the marines were going to be from then on out! Turns out, they were allowed more than 25 minutes of sleep a night. And farm kids were used to early hours. He adapted quickly. Don't tell the instructors, but recruit training was about the most fun he'd ever had in his life.
Granted, it was a bit of a learning curve to straighten out the small town, cocky kid's attitude, but Jay eventually figured out the game, and played to expectations. The hills of San Diego, originally so fascinating to an Iowa boy, soon became a bloodied, mewling thing to conquer. Aching legs and burning lungs became the norm, but the rugged landscape did their work, and cut something semi-useful out of the high school star athlete.
When Jay left San Diego, he walked tall, shoulders back, and looking straight ahead. He knew there was nothing in the world he couldn't accomplish after those twelve weeks. Jay never lacked in self-worth, but walking out of there, a marine, in that uniform, he knew something was different. Least of which was the shearing of an awesomely stylish head of blonde hair, (the root of the nickname Hollywood) but he still had the famous grin and sweet baby blues. If anything, the grin was prouder and the blues brighter.
But you know, being a leatherneck had its perks. But Jay was never quite satisfied with staying still. After completion of SOI (school of infantry), he reported to the 2d Battalion, 8th Marines. While with 2/8 he deployed to Panama, twice to Polynesia, and once to South Africa and Uganda. In a Force Recon battalion, he dropped all over the world (non CCD world anyway) and gathered information between point A and point B. From there, he applied for, and was transferred into, special operations command, MARSOC. He jumped the gun a little early, applying as only a Corporal, an NCO, the minimum rank to be considered, but at 21 years old, exactly 24 months and three days after earning the Eagle, Globe and Anchor, he couldn't wait another day.
Everyone said MARSOC meant you wouldn't have a life; that you were a ghost. But Jay didn't see it that way. They were involved in foreign internal defense, hell they even trained friendly host-nation forces to defend themselves. But the real meat of the matter was to be one of the guys task-directed to conduct recon, step in with direct action, and operate missions in unconventional terrain. On top of all that cool-factor, they did so in support of a geographical combatant commander that needed an extra set of guys, sometimes even with other special forces. Basically, when the Marines had a task needed done outside their reach, they called MARSOC. They called Jay. The deployment tempo was flexible. The terrain weirder. And the missions critical. Better yet, he operated in a small, skilled and immaculately trained group of Marines bound by trust and cohesion. They were a family that dived, jumped, and blew shit up for their country. Who wouldn't fucking love it!
That was how he met Andrew Koehler. A Navy SEAL. Twenty years before then, they probably never would have known the other group was in the same country, let alone work together on a mission, but a more efficient discretionary spending budget meant the Pentagon had to stream line special operations, and that meant downsizing and buddying up with your neighbors.
Nicaragua, Central America. 0145 hours.
A Central American EvilNombre was holed up in a compound. Task was simple. Crawl out of the ocean, snatch him and lay waste to everything he owned so none of his lieutenants could take over operations after the Big Bad disappeared behind the walls of Guantanamo. It should have been clean. Recon said civilian innocents caught in the cross fire would be at a minimum. And they were cleared to go.
The SEALS had the fun task of dismantling the factory while Hollywood and three others took the compound by storm. They cracked like a whip on a rock wall, and Jay worked in a zone, like a void, where there was nothing in the world but his immediate surroundings, his guys, and the weapon in his hands. On the top floor they were met with a short round of firefight, but they quickly found EvilNombre barricaded in an interior room. The second Jay realized EvilNombre was using a little girl as his hostage, gun to her head, he lost his infallible cool. They weren't supposed to kill him – he knew it in his bones: the mission was to take the man alive; Jay was a rifleman and definitely not in charge. But the tears streaming down her face twisted his guts into a knot and something snapped in his mind no psyche test, individual training course, or dedication to the mission could have expected. He thought of the family he hadn't seen in ten months, the little sister that clung to his chest whenever he went home, and before he knew it, he fired a kill shot against direct orders.
He was stateside, Camp Lejune, N.C., one week later where he was watched like a hawk. The first time he was late for formation, he was cited. They goaded him into losing the cool he worked so hard to train away as a Recruit. But despite the setbacks, he stuck to his decision that day in Nicaragua. He'd made a decision, and fuck the order that said he was in the wrong, but he wasn't going to let a little girl be slaughtered in order to interrogate EvilNombre for bullshit intel. And, sure, he might have gone a little batshit crazy with his bayonet on the body after the fact. “YOU PIECE OF SHIT BASTARD! I’D RIP YOUR FUCKING SPLEEN OUT AND FEED IT TO YOUR DOGS! BUT I ALREADY FUCKING BLEW THEIR HEADS OFF YOU MOTHER-“
You get the idea. Suffice to say, they waited until he committed the smallest breech and suddenly he was up for Discharge, Other Than Honorable: nothing that required jail time, but harsher than general disqualification.
Of course, the mission was blacked out. Meaning he couldn't tell his family and friends back in the corn fields what happened. Koehler, and those there at the time, knew. And although they had to stick with orders, the look in their eye said otherwise. They understood. Hollywood had a soft spot, turns out, and something of a temper that only showed itself when that soft spot was threatened. Little girl hostage situations weren't a part of his training, but despite pages of psyche evals that suggested otherwise, a guy just doesn't know what he'll do until he's faced with his triggers.
Jay tried. Hand to God, but he tried to make the transition back into a civilian life. But Jay was sure to claw his own face off in Iowa. He loved being home. He loved his family. But nobody really knew what it was like. He began looking for work elsewhere. Security companies abroad and such.
That's when he found Legion Premiere. Based in North Africa, they were a for-profit corp, but digging around in their past cases and Jay was willing to bet there was more to the story than following the yellow brick road all the way to cashland.
They liked his application and statement. Jay was happy to fly to Morocco for a meet up. Good potential. It wasn't exactly serving his country, not in the same way, but after royally fucking up, he was just happy to see this side of prison. Besides, he was still a proud wearer of the red, white and blue.
At least he was able to have a decent hair cut again. And of course, the heart of gold grin to go with it.
The Legion was surprising. They were ridiculously well trained for private security, and their priorities were unexpected. They weren't too incredibly impressed by Jay's resume, then again, that meant they weren't too incredibly bothered by the circumstances of his discharge either. They must have liked his performance on the slew of tests, questions and checks that followed, because he was offered a spot, and he found himself moving to Casablanca.
Interviews, training (a breeze: although a greater focus on crowd control than he expected), and Jay "Hollywood" Carpenter was in the Legion assigned to the African contingent. Although he had an eye on the DV division, word of their African missions was what started this business. So, Africa it is. Legionnaire 1e Classe was a senior private rank, but thanks to past experience in a legit professional military (yeah no shit - legit professional military), he was told to expect quick advancement. Fine by Jay. He wasn't in it for the money. There were other things he valued. Camaraderie being one. Loyalty another. And being part of an elite unit that managed to do something in the world. Fidelity and Honor was their code. "The Legion is our Fatherland"
, their motto felt strange at first, expressing undying loyalty to something other than the Red White and Blue ’Always faithful, always forward,’ still rang in his head to this day, but Jay didn't see it as abandoning his country. He saw it as joining the world - or something equivalently pansy that he'd never actually admit to another living soul. Ever.
Though he wasn't too big a fan of their dress uniforms, he made those bitches look good.
Physical:
Good, average height, Jay has a lean build consistent with strict military (and his own) PT standards. He's quick to grin, but cool headed and difficult to provoke, unless touching upon the few things he holds dearest in this world, such as threatening those he feels he has a duty to protect, then he has a bit of a problem keeping his cool. Otherwise, he's a red-blooded American country boy, with hay-colored hair and cornflower blue eyes.
Powers:
Turns out, Jay can, and will, channel. He hasn't done so yet. He's 23 years old, so there's plenty of time, but it will happen. He's no reborn god either, unless you consider his own soul to be a god, which he probably does. But if he were around in the 5th or 6th Ages, he was nobody famous. Any life before that is long lost to the histories, but he was there, and he fought with all his heart for the Light, to his dying day.