Name: John Paul D'Angelo (aka "JP" to friends, "Preacher" to the Colonial Marines who remember him)
Appearance: John Paul is 6'1" with a still-muscular build and the dark hair (still worn USCMC regulation style) and dark eyes of his father before him. His voice remains heavily-tinged with a distinctive Alabama drawl, and he is rarely ever seen without that genuinely good-natured smile . Life's been good to him, because hell, he's still alive, isn't he? Preacher's left hand is a prosthetic to the wrist, and he has another prosthetic affixed to his shoulder on the
Burn scars cover most of his natural right shoulder, traveling up the right side of his neck to his jaw line and right ear. That ear is also a prosthetic, but since there was only damage to the external portion, there are no "moving parts" to this natural flesh-colored replacement.
John Paul has several tattoos, which include angel wings spread over both his shoulder blades (though the feather tips on the right are a touch singed, of course). Scripture verses tattooed from his left shoulder to his wrist include Isaiah 9:5, Psalm 144:1-2, Romans 13:4, Revelation 2:26 and John 5:30. A Crusader cross on a shield held upright in the paw of a crowned and crouching lion is inked over his heart, and beneath that down his ribs are the names, birth and death dates of four men and women.
Crew Position/Rank: Executive Officer/First Officer
Age: 34
Relevant History/Background: John Paul D'Angelo grew up in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, with a large, loving and deeply religious family. A natural bent for mathematics and physics and an unending fascination with space made a degree in aerospace engineering an inevitability. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, obtained his degree in aerospace engineering, and then walked into a commission in the USCMC.
1stLt D'Angelo was assigned to the Colonial Marine Aerospace Wing of the 1st CM Division, a UD-4L Cheyenne pilot in the Division's Tactical Group. John Paul earned the nickname "Preacher," first as a [usually] good-natured joke, and then with some grudging respect, when the troops realized the man never flew without the Bible his Mom gave him in the cockpit, and he'd take a moment to pray over - or even with if asked - the Marines before every mission.
Grudging respect, because apparently somebody somewhere gave 1stLt D'Angelo a straight up touch for the miraculous. With his weapons officer WO2 Virga Sann, the man would fly the
Evangeline where even angels would not dare, time and time again getting troops in and out of the toughest spots in the known universe, lighting up targets and riding out unscathed. And even when it looked like his God had finally forsaken him, when a LIM-417 Phalanx missile struck the
Evangeline as they entered the stratosphere of LV-167, John Paul still managed against galaxy sized odds to take her down for a crash landing on the planet's surface. Four Colonial Marines died that day, including WO2 Sann. The Preacher lost his left hand, his right arm and his right ear when a fire detonated in the cockpit and he refused to relinquish the controls before they hit dirt - but the fact that any of them survived at all was a miracle of biblical proportions.
And even if the USCMC could not find a use for the Preacher anymore (no matter how well decorated and vetted a pilot he had been), the Wey-Yu Corporation surely could. Miracles? Heh... Please, step out of the 20th century already. John Paul D'Angelo had that unspeakably rare combination of uncanny skill, right instincts, and unswerving loyalty and conviction that made flying - and then directing flight crews - for the Wey-Yu Corporation a profitable venture for both.
The prosthetics are, of course, entirely a side project of the Wey-Yu Corp, and John Paul has been proving the investment entirely worth every last credit as, for the past five years, he's been steadily working his way up the civilian command structure by sheer talent and natural leadership ability alone. This probably means, of course, that the position of a ship's Executive Officer is likely as far as he'll ever get in the politicized [and corrupt] hierarchy of the Wey-Yu Corp - and John Paul's not stupid enough to think otherwise. Far,
far from it.
Personality: John Paul is, on the whole, a pretty contented guy. He's not rocked by angst or given to brooding about what he's lost: his hand, his arm or his commission in the USCMC. The man is still quick with a grin, a laugh, a good word; he's a natural leader who - for all his quirks - still manages to bring people close with the genuine and unfeigned warmth and decency, and garner respect for his sound abilities. Still, he's no one's fool; few people have a better grasp of human nature - for good or ill - than John Paul D'Angelo. And as ever, he's more than ready to put a boot up someone's ass on an as-needed basis, to be applied regularly until the acute symptoms of stupid have abated.
