David Howard

David Howard, born March 27th 1983, was raised within Central Illinois by his parents Derek and Diana. If it was not obvious enough, the family had a sort of trend for names that started with the letter "D". Regardless, David was the only child they had. Derek was in the Army, specifically the National Guard, and his mother worked at the local school he attended. Growing up in Central Illinois was about as simple and uneventful as one could imagine. Spending most of his time outdoors and messing around. Mostly just going and playing "Soldier" with a really cool looking stick and climbing trees to eventually back down. But as grade school went by and high school came up, David preformed as well as most others in the normal or "required" classes, but did remarkably well in track and the more VOTEC aligned classes. Being a star runner for the sprints all the way up to 400 meters, and being on the relay teams, as well as enjoying his welding, electricity, and auto-mech classes. With his remarkable grades from those classes in mind his parents imagined him going to a trade school or perhaps getting a scholarship from his track performance. But perhaps, to their not so large surprise, David had a different career path in mind.

Once he turned 18 David went to the local US Army recruiters office and put his name on the dotted line for a Combat Engineer contract. There was a little confusion though. He thought it was more along the lines of "being a mechanic" engineer, not "blow-up this locked doorway" engineer. Regardless, David was there for it. Basic Training kicked off without a hitch for the most part. His rather tall and wiry build of course earned the attention of his Drill Sergeants time and time again. Mostly being referred to as a scarecrow, string bean, tree limb, and so on. But despite their efforts David marched onward. Even when issues came to the barracks, he stood his ground and avoided the worst out of the brawls that totally did not happen. Especially when the Drill Sergeants asked about them. Nothing happened at all. Nope.

Regardless, David was not exactly a step above the rest of his peers. Sure his marksmanship while on the shooting range was rather good, and he was always near the front of the pack during a ruck-march, his unwillingness to participate the "dog and pony show" during the slower parts of his training kept him from being the best of the best. Granted, this also meant that he was very reliable when it came to the more gritty aspects of training, BT and his further MOS specific training kept going by without a hitch until he "graduated", was promoted to E2/Private for his performance, and moved to his unit. The 10th Mountain Division. From there he was given some time to get things situated before being taken to the rest of his unit over in Afghanistan. And from the get-go David's career was already ramping up in adrenaline. Sure, he had his fair share of firefights and "close calls" but he was not going out of his way to get into them. He already had enough on his mind knowing that he was always carrying live explosives incase something needed to be removed in a dramatic fashion to say the least.

Though, only after 8 years of his service things would come to a dramatic end. When clearing out a local village other members of his unit had come across a weapons cache. They had not cleared the village of hostiles entirely but knew that this cache should be removed before any enemy forces entered the village. David was called up to BIP (blow-in-place) the building and destroy the cache. He armed the charges and moved to exit the hut when some Taliban scouts planned on making a stop there. During the gunfight one of the Taliban fired an RPG at the cache. Thankfully, this did not cause the many pounds of C4 inside the building to go off with David inside. Unfortunately the blast from the RPG's warhead itself was too close to his left side. His left forearm was ripped from his body as he was launched quickly from one side of the room to the other, barely conscious. David managed to keep himself awake enough to get a torniquet on his arm and be present when his team was able to MEDEVAC him. This, of course, did bring his service to an end. He was medically discharged and given an honorary promotion to Staff Sergeant.

By this point it was 2009. David returned home for some time and, thankfully, did not have much to worry about. Derek and Diana did their best to support him and help him get through the physical therapy. Getting used to one arm took some time. He had a worse time with that than getting over some of the mental issues he now had. At least, it appeared that way. David turned to being a bit more quiet than usual but never anything alarming thankfully. But as time went on David found himself soon moving to live on his own, once again out in the countryside instead of within Peoria with his parents. There he began doing small work as a general contractor. Work was hard, of course, but he managed to get by with that and his benefits from the government. Time rolled along and soon the year passed. Nothing changed much in a significant way.

But then came August. Being out in the countryside David did not necessarily realize just what was happening. Mostly getting updates from his parents who lived in the city. Both of them had came down with the flu in a bad way and had to be taken to the hospital. Nothing out of the ordinary yet. But soon his parents were not allowed to leave. David prepared to make his way back up to Peoria but found the recently declaration of emergency and local law enforcement keeping him from leaving town. So he instead did what he thought was best. Prepare. There was not much he could do but David did his best to make do with what he had. Living in a smaller town meant there was not any looting or riots to be worried about. Instead it was simply not having all that he might need. September rolled around and David decided he was going to find his parents whether people liked it or not. He began his drive up-state and towards Peoria as Operation Cobalt was declared. David passed many on the roads, some sicker than others, but never stopped. He did not want to take any chances with those he could not tell were sick. But when he had to stop, David did deal with those that got too close. At first he had some hesitation but as he got closer to Peoria and found a still burning city, he knew he could not hesitate anymore. There was nothing left for him in Illinois by now. It was time to leave.

David then began to travel. Car, feet, bike, boat, whatever. Keeping away from major cities and towns to avoid the most trouble. Eventually his wandering led him along the rivers that the Path to Zenith was on, specifically around Evansville. Despite what every bone in his body was saying, David found himself drawn to the ship and soon boarding it with many others. For better or worse being part of that last group before the ship docked at Brandenburg within Kentucky. Away from home and able to perhaps start fresh at least.