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    1. Squrmy 11 yrs ago

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Sean Gardiner sat in the back of an Italian truck, looking severely out of place on the island of Crete with his pale, sweaty skin. It was not that he didn’t like Greece’s climate, it was that he was unused to it - it was severely different to the drizzly and often cold temperatures he had grown accustomed to back home in Ireland, and the heat had been bothering him ever since the day he had arrived. As if it wasn’t bad enough that it was extremely hot, Sean had had to move about in his British Army uniform the entire time - which was made of a thick fabric which certainly didn’t make it easy to breathe.

The truck bounced and jostled about with every bump in the road, large or small, and there had even been a few times when Sean had nearly been thrown off his seat (although he did not think the uncomfortable plank of wood he was sitting upon could be called that, by any stretch of the imagination). His hands readjusted their grip around the cold metal barrel of the weapon that rested between his legs for the fortieth time that hour; palms warm and sticky with sweat, born from a combination of the heat, the uncomfortable transportation, and the overwhelming sense of unease that he felt beginning to consume him as it spread upward from the bottom of his stomach.

Where is that God damned Englishman?

He was referring, of course, to the man whom he had had the misfortune of being reassigned to upon his transferral to the island of Crete.

On mainland Greece, Sean had been assigned to an element of the British Army’s 38th (Northern Irish) Light Infantry, which had been sent along with the British Forces to assist the Greeks in their losing fight with the Germans. On mainland Greece, Sean’s commanding officers had been competent and highly efficient (as most Northern Irish men who make a career of being in the military are), and even caring. Although casualties had been larger than expected on the mainland and the British had been forced to pull back, Sean had always felt relatively confident of his survival when serving under the officers of the 38th. Now, however, he felt entirely different.

Upon arriving on Crete, he had been hastily reassigned by a rather stressed looking officer to serve in the platoon of a “Second Lieutenant Hedger”, along with a pair of young lads who had also come from the 38th - George Penfold and Harry McKee, 18 and 20 respectively. Sean immediately stepped up to make the changeover as smooth as possible, as was his duty (being a Corporal).

He reassured the two young lads in as appropriate a fashion as was possible (his superior rank preventing him from lavishing them with his full sympathetic attention, as his fatherly instincts were pushing him to), and the trio had then made their way to report to their new commanding officer - and, upon meeting him, Sean’s feeling of unease had begun. Since then, it had only grown, gradually consuming him with every day he was exposed to his CO’s drunken (and perhaps deliberate) incompetence.

Now, barely three weeks from the day of Sean’s arrival on the small Greek island (which had somehow become so critical in the fight between the Greeks, British and the Germans), he found himself in the back of a shitty Italian truck, sitting in the middle of George and Harry. The two young lads had seen combat, but less so than Sean - and even he was no seasoned soldier by any stretch of the imagination, and he knew it.

Across and slightly down from him sat one of the platoon’s Sergeants, a man who came from New Zealand. Sean had only been introduced to the man once, but he had remembered his name - Scott. The name of one of his cousins. The Irishman offered the man a small smile when their eyes made a brief moment of contact, before turning his head away - blue gaze focusing on a section of the tarpaulin above a nameless Private’s helmet.

Suddenly - and after what had seemed like an eternity in the back of the truck - the hunks of Italian scrap metal screeched to a halt. The ANZAC Sergeant and his section quickly exited the vehicle, followed just as swiftly by Sean and the two young Irishmen he had taken under his wing: George with his short ginger hair, youthful features and green eyes, and muscular Harry who had brown hair like Sean’s wife but broad shoulders like his father’s.

The two Privates stood in a braced position near the truck, awaiting orders - Corporal Gardiner taking a handful of steps toward his commanding officer, waiting just within earshot as the orders were given. His gaze followed Sergeant Harris and his section as they rushed to their position, eyes then flicking to the Greek as he and his men moved off to man their own position.

”Whoever is left, you’re with me in the centre.”

Those fateful words caused a feeling of hopelessness to rise over Sean that threatened to consume him, and for a moment he simply stood still, struggling with his internal feelings of despair. Come on, Sean! He may be an idiot, but he’s an Officer. You signed up for this. For King and Country! Think of your wife, of James and Susan.

Shifting the Bren that was resting on his shoulder, and with a hardened furrow to his brow, Sean finally managed to push himself to action after what seemed like an age (but had only been a handful of seconds). He approached his commanding officer (who himself seemed to be doing very little), an all-business look about him. He offered a hasty salute before launching into his speech, words distinctly marked by his County Down accent. “Sir! Myself and Privates McKeon and Penfold are left, along with a few others and some of the Greeks. We’ll set ourselves up in a defensive position near the AA Gun. Do you want me to move the other men into any particular formation?”

As he waited for a response, it was as if his ears had suddenly been switched on - the sounds of the German planes flying overhead filling his skull, alongside the chatter of machinegun fire and the dull sound of anti aircraft weapons being fired at the luftwaffe above.

Sean Gardiner was suddenly aware that he was on a battlefield, in the middle of a war - and that his CO’s breath reeked of alcohol.

It was going to be a very long day.
Thanks! :D

And do we need to have any other Platoon/other character positions filled? I'll get round to writing up a second sheet at some point, and I'm happy to shape my character around a role we need filled.
Sturmgeschutz said
A Bren would operate fine with just a single user, but you could also have a "loader" who'd be in charge of keeping the thing going (changing the mags etc) whilst your character could be the guy doing all the pointing and clicking. The loader would also be the eyes and ears, and would be yelling out targets to your character.

So yeah, in summary, you'd have an extra guy with you who'd change the mags and watch the flanks.


Alrighty, I'll start writing up a post for Sean, then. He'll have a pair of young Irish fellows along with him, both of whom are semi trained in how to be his "reloading guy", but one who'll just act as a regular ol' rifleman until the other one gets shot. They'll both be expendable, so I'm sure we can easily do away with them and have another player help him out if that's the way things end up going.

I'll start working on an introductory post in a moment, and contact kingkonrad to see if he wants to work on a collab post. =)
Well, I wanted to play my Corporal as one of the Platoon's Machine Gunners (which is why he's armed with a standard issue LMG for the British Army). I was going to say that he had two NPC Privates with him who were also from his home Regiment in Ireland (if that was okay), who had survived the British failings on mainland Greece, and acted as his MG team ('cause from my experiences on Company of Heroes, there are two extra fellows along with any machine gunner, although I'm not sure if that's historically accurate).

I could stick them under the Kewi's command, perhaps, if that's alright?
Awesome! If I understood the posts that have been made so far in the IC correctly, we're all to be in your character's platoon, Sturmgeschutz? Which Sergeant would Sean most likely have been put under?

Or, if you'd like, I could have him be under the command of Lieutenant Bailey. It could make for some more.. interesting interactions between the soldiers, perhaps?
Sorry for the double post! It posted my CS twice, and I couldn't figure out how to delete the second one (this post).
Here's my sheet! It's slightly rushed, so I apologise for any appalling historical inaccuracies if there are any. :P I'm happy to make edits if need be!

Name: Sean Gardiner
Gender: Male
Nationality: British (Northern Irish)
Age: 32
Physical Appearance: Sean stands at a fairly average height of 5’11”, and has a rather stereotypical “Irish” look to him - with dark hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes. He has a broad, strong (although athletic) build.

His black hair (usually wavy) is cut short in a military style, and contrasts with the much lighter colour of his eyes. He has a serious look to him, and his cheeks are often covered by a layer of stubble.
Rank: Corporal
Weapon and Ammunition: Bren Light Machine Gun MK 2 | .303, Magazine Filled
Brief Background: Sean was born in Newtonards, Northern Ireland, in 1909. Born into a heavily Loyalist area, Sean (and his family) did not possess the resentment that many Irishmen at the time did toward the British occupation of Ireland - in fact, Sean’s mother was from England. His father was a prominent businessman in the area, and so Sean’s childhood was a quiet and uneventful (although privileged) one. When war came in 1914, Sean was not overly affected, as none of his immediate relatives went to the Western Front. However, a great many of the “big kids” as he had known them at the time did not return when the Great Conflict came to a close in 1918.

Sean was 12 whenever ‘Northern Ireland’ was officially created in 1921, and 13 whenever Southern Ireland seceded away from the North of the country in 1922 to create the Irish Free State. Living as he did in the North (and in a Loyalist area), Sean was immune to the turmoil of the events of the Irish Civil War and those that followed. His teen years and young life went along relatively uneventfully, with Sean getting a job in his father’s business while he went through University.

He got married to his high school sweetheart at the age of twenty-one. The pair soon had a child of their own (a beautiful baby boy named James), who was born in mid 1930. A second child - a daughter, named Susan - followed in 1932.

When War was declared in 1939, Sean was filled with a sense of patriotic duty: he was still a young and perfectly able man, and had been too young to serve in the first Great War - now was his chance to do his bit against Germany and fight for King and Country. However, he had a family - and so his sense of responsibility to his wife and child prevented him from rushing to the nearest recruitment office. Over the next year, Sean continued to work for his father, but gradually began putting his affairs in order: and, once he was sure his family would be provided for, announced that he intended to join up and do his bit for King and Country.

His wife was saddened, but she had known she would not be able to keep him from what he felt was his duty forever: and so, in early 1941, he went to the nearest recruitment office and joined up with the 38th Irish Brigade. He went through training well enough, and was promoted to the rank of Corporal both because of his skill and his father’s connections with several men in the War Office.

When the British Expeditionary Corps was sent to Greece to help repel the German Invasion, Sean shipped out with them: and so, he has found himself on Crete, alongside a mish-mash of other Commonwealth Forces.
Alrighty. And this was just.. a mix-matched moosh of Commonwealth Forces on the island, historically - or were there groups/platoons of each nation on the island when the battle kicked off? I'm not very well versed in the smaller battles of WW2 (I'm more Eastern Front, as we studied Russia last year in High School), so sorry for my lack of knowledge!
Terminal said
I'm just glad everyone has stayed with this despite the turmoil. Hopefully that's a sign that the roleplay will take off once the IC actually goes up.


I'm with Terminal - it just seem quite hopeful!

I will get around to making my final edits to Jax's sheet either today or tomorrow. Sorry, I've been busy!
I'll start on a sheet soon - going to make either an Australian or a Belfastian Loyalist. Probably both, actually (be true to both my Irish roots and my now-Australian-ness :P). We are limited to playing Allies, right?
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