Alright, so I am not sure what exactly they want me to say here. The guy said to just sit down and start talking, so here it goes… I was born on Leonis back before the first war started. From what I remember of the time leading up to the war, it was a pretty nice place. My dad Henry was a mechanic in town and worked mostly on farm equipment since we were not one of the ski sloper families. I remember he used to take me to work with him and while he was doing the big work he would let me lap valves and do my own work, of course I was so little I was probably more of a hinderance than a help. My mom, Caroline, was a stay at home mother and I remember she made the best fried okra and mac and cheese. She was the prettiest woman I think I have ever seen. Her smile just made you feel warm and like laughing. God, this is harder than I thought it would be… Anyways, I was about five when the Cylons dropped the neutron bombs on the planet. We lived outside of the city a little ways, so me and mom were fine, but I remember her being terrified about dad. We couldn't get in touch with him for hours and we kept seeing people running from the city, trying to get away. It was terrible. Finally late that night he made it home to us. Mom was so happy… but things would never be the same as they had been. Dad enlisted in the military as a deck crewman. I guess with what he had done pre-war it just made sense. He was gone all of the time, assigned to duty on Aerilon last we heard. After a year or two we quit hearing from him. Mom started drinking… crying herself to sleep every night. Then all of a sudden things changed. We were going to meet a neighbor that ran a small vegetable farm for the locals to get food and out of no where, there was an APF squad that opened fire on us. About twenty people total? Three of us made it away, but my mom wasn't one of them. She had been shot in the back while we were running, and that was the last that I saw of her. A neighbor picked me up and dragged me away. I guess he saved my life, but I was only six, you know? Anyways, about a year later we heard that the war was over, but by then I was already in the system and… Frak this, I am not doing this shit.
Alright… ALRIGHT! Damn! God, I need a cigarette… Okay. Where was I? So I was in the system by the time the war "ended". Thrown into one of several homes for war orphans, I am sure my story sounds a dime a dozen to you people. A ton of people died in the war, so I am sure there are about a million kids just like me. Kids who were left alone in the dark and at the mercy of the anger and hate that environment breeds in larger kids. I can't tell you how many nights I was woke up in my bed already being beaten by some fat finger goon that couldn't deal with his own shit without taking it out on me. I guess it made it worse since I was one of the smaller ones, kind of runty, and because I was smarter than everyone else. They sent us all to school, of course, and I did well. I guess it just came natural to me, because I sure as frak wasn't getting much study time in when every time I came back to the home I was in a real life simulation of Darwin's Survival of the Fittest. Plus when they sent grades out, the home "mother" would use my marks as a means of telling the other kids how they just weren't doing enough. I caught hell over that.
Finally when I was around twelve me and around four other kids, boys and girls, were placed with a family in one of the cities that were being rebuilt. By that time I had already figured out that I had inherited my dad's talent for fixing things. You know… it is one of those things where if you asked me to go out and design you a computer terminal, I wouldn't know shit about where to start. But if it is an engine or a fuel combustion chamber… if I can see how it comes apart or know what makes something do what it does… it just makes sense to me. Anyways, I guess that is how I started coping when in the orphanage and it just kind of stuck. By the time I was put with that family I was finding little engines to take apart and put back together. Fixing neighbors' stuff for a little pocket money along the way. The war actually seemed to be a thing of the past and a lot of the soldiers were coming home and making lives for themselves. I even ran into a man that had served with my dad on Aerilon at a Farmer's Market, but he didn't know what had happened to him either. I figure he died in the war. Otherwise the thought that he had found himself a new life somewhere else, and didn't bother to come home to find out about me or mom would really wreck my shit… so yeah. My dad died in the war.
By the time that I was sixteen, I knew that I wanted to get off of Leonis. What better way to do that than to Enlist, right? Follow in my grand old pappy's footsteps and all of that bullshit. Listen, as real world as it is to say, I joined the military as a means to an end. I was dirt poor, and staying on Leonis wasn't going to work for me. So I enlisted and off to boot camp I went… and it kicked my ass. Hey, I am not holding any illusions that I am secretly some badass hidden in this uniform. I am a gearhead. I fix ships and I am good at it. I can even shoot a gun from a Raptor when I am needed to. But I am not some balls out jarhead that lives for the kill and to make blood pour, okay? I got my ass kicked literally every night in the orphanage. I know what I am. Scrappy? Sure. Fight for my life? Of course… I just don't like my odds. I went through boot camp and the Brass apparently saw what I already knew about myself and filtered down into the deck crew I was. A-School came right after and I spent a while learning the ins and outs of fighter construction and inner workings. I can take one of those birds apart and put it back together blindfolded.
Anyways, so that is about the gist of it. I got out of A School and went into active duty repairing fighter ships pretty much first thing. I have been in the military for thirteen years now and don't really see much of a reason to get out unless they tell me I have to. I've got a few promotions under my belt and have a have a good deal of practical experience as well. I've just gotten orders to transfer to the Battlestar Orion, then again that's why I am making up this thing in the first place.
