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.
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
