It was the combined savings of 9 Navy and 1 Marine pension that allowed the 10 ex-military officers to retire to a nice convenient mansion in the toney hills of Sunset Valley's Summer Hill Court district. It was full of rich - both nouveau and long-time rich folks. The Landgraabs and the Altos were wealthy, the Altos by means best not spoken about in polite company, and the Landgraabs who were the old-wealth much in the vein of the Goths. Gunter however was eccentric and loved to live in an old mansion that reminded people of the Addams Family. There was something strange about them and it certainly kept people away from their home - considering it was next to the graveyard. It was however quite uncertain as to how the wealthy dynasty Landgraabs (both Nancy and Geoffrey and their son Malcolm) viewed the upstart ex-military officers who pooled their pensions together, but all in all, they had the equivalent of §13M in the bankroll and were thus able to buy a nice mansion in Summer Hill Court - 15 Summerhill Court to be exact and with a few discoveries on their lot were in the position to INCREASE their wealth immensely.
It was a rather motley cast of characters who moved into 15 Summerhill Court and it was no surprise that it annoyed Vita and Nick Alto to no end when they realized who their neighbours were going to be. But frankly, Tosh didn't care one iota about what his neighbours thought. He'd paid good money for the property and it was his to do with what he wanted; he was all for letting bygones be bygones but if Nick Alto wanted to cross swords with him, so be it. He'd faced much better opponents in the skies over Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention over Kosovo and he had learned martial arts in the military, including MCMAP (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) and Sim Fu - he'd silenced a few jarheads who'd up until then were snarking about how MCMAP wasn't the right fit for a swabbie - one ended up with a busted knee-cap and the other a broken and wrenched out-of-its-socket arm - it was that day two gyrenes understood that armlocks and the soles of one's feet could be deadly weapons. Nick would probably get a rude awakening as to just how deadly Tosh could be if provoked.
After all, it was a rescue mission that Tosh himself had planned and executed, on a hilltop 6.2 miles north west of Kimchaek, - an F-14 had gone down hours before while on a TARPS recon mission; the pilot being killed and the Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) having ejected after being hit by a SAM; where Tosh found himself holding off the greater part of the 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, 4th Guards. aiming to hold out until they were rescued by a SPECOPS EVAC helo. Surviving a full charge by the infantry division with only an M4A1 and a few well-placed grenades, he somehow managed to get to the evac with only two 7.62 shots through the space between the clavicle and the coracoid process. If those North Korean *******s weren't shooting at him, he would have marvelled at their markmanship, but by jeez, they were shooting at him and he wasn't going to stick around to commend them on their accuracy. What followed was a major operation on his shoulder, a six month rehab stint all the while being under investigation for telling the XO, a coward with the callsign Rabbit - for scatological reasons, to go flagellate a dead horse - in actual fact what he had told the XO was much more profane. Of course that didn't matter to the battlegroup commander or the CO, since they both thought the XO was a no-load already and they threw their full support in behind Tosh. To follow up on that, he was investigated by his old buddy himself, Harmon Rabb, a member of the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps - and that was because the brass had shot up a commendation for his actions, on that hilltop where all he'd been doing was making sure his rear-end didn't get shot off, which the grand poobahs wearing stars seemed to think that it was worth a dangling brass medal on a blue ribbon that got draped around his neck while everyone fawned over his feat of not getting his patootie shot up like swiss cheese. Whether it was a combination of survivor's guilt and euphoria that he was still breathing even though one of his squadron-mates was vaporized into his component atoms after the F-14 exploded in mid-air, it wasn't certain. All he knew was that he was alive.
But that event changed him more than he realized. Practically overnight, Tosh was a changed man, who brooked no deviation from standard operating procedures. He became a hard, tough commanding officer after being battlefield promoted to Commander (0-5). He became an unrelenting taskmaster and disciplinarian. And it still showed in flashes of his military behavior out-of-uniform even though he was retired.
He couldn't articulate it very well, most military men don't - they're expected to be tough and unrelenting. But if he were to be sat down on a psychiatric evaluation couch, he'd be found out that he "didn't want to lose anyone else". But Tosh would rather walk on hot coals then admit that.
It could be forgiven that someone would quite possibly think that Kimber Benton was a pretty face with nothing upstairs. She could play the ditzy redhead with no problem, just to crush someone with relative ease later on. And she had done that to great effect while being called upon by CIA operative Clayton Webb on numerous occasions to Tosh's everlasting disgust and he had mentioned that if Webb continued to utilize Kimber for his plumtastic missions, he'd make sure that Clayton Webb would remember just exactly why the North Koreans didn't like him. Kimber was the prized XO (Executive Officer - 2nd in command) of Tosh's F-14 fighter squadron and as such she was a valuable part of the squadron. But Kimber also had a secret of her own - one that she kept close to her bosom - as the XO and CO were supposed to professionally be on the same page with regards to the running of the squadron, they would have to have meetings regarding the efficacy of the standing orders and it just so happened that she had developed feelings for her commanding officer, ones that could potentially put her in complete contravention of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. As she had no desire to be ground in between the gears of military procedure and being subject ot a JAGMAN investigation, she squelched down those feelings and kept a tight lid on them...until they got out of the Navy.
Liandra Gracen was yet another pretty face that disguised an acute mind as one of the top legal counsels in the Navy JAG Corps. Primarily a loner and shy, she found solace in her books and in art. A quiet sort, she preferred the company of a good book over a night out on the town. A hopeless romantic, she did feel the want of a Prince Charming and was waiting for Mr. Right.
One could mistake the JAG Headquarters for the cover of Vogue with all the pretty faces in the office, however, Meg had come back from Naval Intelligence and came back to JAG after a four year hiatus with NAVINTEL. However before being dragooned to play Navy Spook, she ended up being the second to Harmon Rabb's lead investigator in the investigation that awarded Tosh the Navy's highest medal. And that was where Meg met Tosh. And felt an instant attraction towards him. But it would be two years before he even met up with her again. And by that time, he'd already put in for his retirement from the Navy.
There was something a little off-kilter about Phil Burrows when one met him. Other than the fact that he was childish and insane which were not good traits to have in a fighter pilot - he was still a competent stick though and managed to always bring back the Tomcat in one piece which was a good thing for his superiors. And somehow he managed to not tick off all of his superiors, which were many of them as he was always finding a way to end up on the plum-list of pretty much anyone who outranked him. But finding happiness outside of the Navy was yet another key element necessary for life experiences and Phil needed to find that balance - though his grasp on mental sanity was tenuous.
What more could be said about Harmon Rabb Jr. than has already been said. Coming from a West Coast family, born to Patricia Rabb and Harmon Rabb Sr., he was a quintessential Navy baby - and it seemed that he was destined to be a Naval Officer from the time that he could crawl. At the age of 4, his father took him to an airshow and plunked him down in the cockpit of an F-4J Phantom II, the same type that his father flew for the Navy. The picture of him sitting in the cockpit of the aircraft and his father standing to the side, both of them looking at the camera was one of his prized posessions. Because on Christmas Eve, 1968, His father was shot down north of Hanoi doing an Iron Hand mission after his F-4 was hit by Triple-A and was captured and presumed missing in action. His mother after grieving remarried and Harm was brought up by both his mother and his step-father as well as his Grandma Sarah. That motivated Harmon Rabb Jr. to go into the Navy and become a naval aviator like his father.
Harm succeeded in that mission and became a naval aviator, rising through the Naval Academy and achieving top marks in his class allowing him to go to Naval Aviation School at NAS Pensacola in preparation to receive his naval aviator wings. Then from there he was sent to a fleet Reserve Air Group, a squadron that flew the type in which he was to train in, there was where he met Tosh (Animal) who trained him how to fly and fight in the F-14A Tomcat. It was a heady time where he felt like he was on top of the world; flying in combat over Afghanistan and Iraq with his best buddy and former RAG instructor at his side, but only two years after achieving his life-goal of becoming a Naval Aviator, it all came crashing down. An infection in his eye (though at the time the doctors had thought it was night-blindness) caused him to have a ramp-strike which killed his RIO and sent him to the hospital for a long stint at recover. A FNAEB (Flight Naval Aviator Evaluation Board) summary ruling yanked his wings and he was given the choice to either pick another MOS or get booted out of the Navy. Harm chose to stay in and pursue the legal profession, ending up at JAG. He also earned his wings back on an investigation onbaord the USS Seahawk where he ended up landing the Tomcat from the back seat (no such thing...in RL - it's just JAG Canon fiction - blame DPB - he's a Marine) and saving the CAG of the Seahawk Captain Tom Boone (who quite conveniently was Harm's father's wingman on the night that his father went down) From there, he went on to amass a rather substantial win record in JAG litigation cases until he decided that enough was enough and retired to Sunset Valley along with his old buddy from RAG and his friend from JAG, Major Sarah Mackenzie, Marine Corps. Upon arrival he was pleasantly suprised to find his old JAGMAN investigation partner, Lieutenant Commander Meg Austin (recently promoted then also decided to retire to see if she could try her hand at romance)
Lieutenant Commander Jack Keeter or just plain ol' Keeter to everyone who came into contact with him was pretty much what one would call a party animal. He, Luke Pendry, Sturgis Turner and Harmon Rabb were pretty much the FOUR Amigos at the Naval Academy. After graduating from the Academy, they pretty much went their separate ways. Turner became a bubblehead (a submariner) and Luke, Harm and Keeter went into Naval Aviation, were royally chewed out by Animal on several occasions while at RAG and ended up transitioning into the fleet squadrons, all different ones. Keeter went into the Cougars, Harm was flying with the Howlers and Luke was a Raptor. Luke however met an untimely end due to a mechanical malfunction that caused his F-14 to suddenly go inverted and pull up - which when inverted put the F-14 directly into the ground otherwise known as "making a smoking hole". So it was just the three of them, plus Animal who pretty much became the fourth Amigo after Luke became one with the fertilizer. Jack had a propensity to get lost which ended up putting him in Cuba. That pretty much ended his Naval career because the brass certainly didn't like him taking a vacation jaunt (however inadvertent) and he was dragooned by the "Can't Identify Anything" - sarcastic acronym for CIA - Animal referred to them as the Cr**tastic I****s Available which annoyed the living manure out of Clayton Webb. Keeter was then called upon to fly the Black Jet (F-117 Nighthawk but more ostensibly known as the Wobbly Goblin) and promptly found himself STUCK in Iraq - hey, at least it was a long runway in the desert with nothing to hit - perhaps Jack had picked the wrong service after all with the Navy - after all things happen to Marines. Things never did work out for Jack. That meant that poor Harm and Mac had to rescue the luckless former naval aviator. That ultimately caused Webb and the DDCIA to yank his rating and thus he too ended up at Sunset Valley.
Coming from an abusive background with a front end slide into full-on alcoholism, it could be said that one should not expect too much from Sarah Mackenzie, however this was not the case; this Marine learned early on from her uncle, Colonel Matthew O'Hara that falling was acceptable, as long as you picked yourself up. Taking her off to Red Rock Mesa to dry out and search for dinosaur bones, he made sure that she was on a steady track and then set her loose to find herself. She promptly joined the Marine Corps. Her determination led her to receiving her Major's rank upon being deep-selected. It was then that she ended up in JAG. After serving four years and meeting Harm who became her legal partner in the Judge Advocate, she decided that she would retire to Sunset Valley, but unfortunately her taste for adventure would leave her dissatisfied with civilian life and she ended up back in the military, this time at Fort Gnome and unfortunately since Harm had chosen to enjoy his retirement and become an angler, he wouldn't be following her back into uniform.
Lieutenant Commander Peter Ulysses "Sturgis" Turner was one of the Four Amigos who roomed together and hung together with Keeter, Harm and Luke at the Naval Academy. Sturgis was an odd-ball, incredibly focused and obssesive about things, and as such he decided that bobbing around the ocean currents in a metal double-hulled tube at crushing depths would be a fun way to spend his naval career. Either that or the lack of oxygen to his brain was a deciding factor. Occasionally having to surface brought on a nasty case of the bends and it was during that particular moment he thought that being a legal officer at JAG was the better way to go. When he came to from that hallucination, he decided that retirement was probably even better and promptly sent in an application for his DD214 ending up at Sunset Valley with the rest of the gang.
Lieutenant Jennifer Coates was the only mustang out of the ten officers who ended up living together. She was a former Legalman First Class who took night courses and got her degree in psychology. She planned to go into the medical field as a psychologist and was assigned to Bethesda Naval Medical Center before it was changed to Walter Reed. She was given her Ensign rank through the STA-21 program and ended up being assigned to Fort Gnome with the Army, which didn't make a whole bit of sense, but well, Fort Gnome had a hospital and they needed some medical staff, so Jen planned to finish her hitch of 21 years as per the requirement by the program under which she was commissioned. However she would be splitting her duties between the base and the Sunset Valley Hospital.
And that concludes the roll-call of the 10 characters in my little fit of JAGInsanity.
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