Franklin Harrier had grown up in middle America, in a perfect little suburban home. It was idealic in simplicity and other than the occasional bouts of boredom he really never had any complaints. He played football in high school and was good at athletics, which was no surprise due to his big muscled frame and handsome good looks. By the time he was in his senior year he stood at 6'3" and weighed around 220 lbs, most of which was lean muscle. But his truest passion had always been acting, he'd even tried out for the drama club that last year of school; once peer pressure had subsided enough for him to admit he wanted to be an actor to his jock buddies. They'd given him a bit of guff, but not as much as he'd expected.<br/><br/>By the time he was a sophomore in college, he'd tried out for several plays, but never gotten over the stage fright that plagued him. Frank could memorize lines no problem, and when they rehearsed he always had a way of really bringing the characters to life, but once an audience of people were staring at him, he simply froze up and stuttered like a scared little kid. The mental block never relented, and it ended up collapsing his dreams of ever acting and  eventually gave up on it.<br/><br/>After college he'd taken a job as a personal trainer, for rich clients of the local gym. He didn't hate his job, and he supposed that was atleast something, after all his father had worked in factories his whole life and it was obvious that he'd always hated it, but after all,  that's the role of a husband and father and the man rarely complained about it.<br/><br/>But then the war happened, The first successful invasion of America since the Revolutionary war. Much of the East Coast, New York and Washington DC included ; fell to the occupying force of Islamic fundamentalists. It had appeared that the hostile countries of the Middle east had had enough of American meddling in their affairs and decided to give us some of our own medicine. 'Dirty bombs' (suitcase nukes) were detonated in large populated cities, and soon after a ground force moved in to occupy the newly conquered half of our Country. They declared East of the Mississippi river, 'New Mecca'.<br/><br/>With American government reeling, having lost so many of it's elected officials in a single stroke, San Francisco, California was deemed the new capital of what was left of our once proud nation, with the former prison Alcatraz as the new fortified White House and the Postmaster General, Patrick R. Donahoe as our impromptu President because he was the only one left in the chain of command.<br/><br/>The war was on, and every able-bodied man over the age of sixteen was drafted into the militia, to take the fight to those evil towel headed bastards. However woman were excluded, President Donahoe's explanation was that we still needed people to run the factories and when our men got home, they need to start families in order to repopulate this country once again, after we'd reclaimed the lost territory.  Woman's reproductive abilities being far too important to waste on the battlefield.<br/><br/><br/>So now here Frank was, in an airship, getting shipped off to fight at the front lines. Giant ramparts had been constructed all along the Mississippi River's bank by each side. It was here that most of the combat raged, as East of the Ol' Miss was either an irradiated wasteland, or  Terrorist occupied territories. This was the reason that the US hadn't just bombed them back out of there in the first place. Many of the towns that weren't badly effected by the fallout, were still full of American Citizens, that now were living under brutal Islamic regime.<br/><br/>Frank had done well during basic training, his physical and mental attributes put him at the head of his class and by the time they'd shipped out he'd risen to the rank of Master Sargent, being placed in command of this squad of 'men'. He surveyed them, most of which were still wet behind the ears, and as the last stragglers boarded the airship, one in particular sat down next to him and buckled up.<br/><br/>Sgt. Harrier, stared directly at the smaller, frailer soldier as 'he' nervously clutched his pack, there was something about 'him' but he couldn't quite be sure. For one thing the charcoal goatee was fairly obvious to anyone more than a few feet away from 'him', but the disguise might just be to conceal the young 'man's age. It was unneeded as most of the squad was barely more than 16, but for some reason this one felt the need to look older, probably just nervous about being picked on.<br/><br/>Frank leaned over and looked at the new recruits name tag, 'Martins', strange as well, not 'Martin' or 'Martez' but 'Martins'.  " Hello Private Martins, I am Sgt Harrier, I'll be your squad leader, pleased to meet you." Frank said as he held out his big hand for the frail 'youngster' to shake.<br/><br/><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd415/coffinhunter77/Supasoldier_zps0b80f602.jpg">[ img ]</a>