LCpl. Dusty "Madds" Maddsen, USMC.

Name: Dusty Maddsen

Age: 29
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 180 lbs.
Hair: Light Brown
Eyes: Green

When we first meet Dusty, he is wearing his camoflauge BDUs, combat boots, and soft cover as he is on his way to the Marine Corps base for routine training. Aside from a pocket knife which he carries with him always, he is not armed. He has a practical timepiece on his wrist and some chewing tobacco in his blouse pocket.

Personality:
Dusty has a way of dealing with his problems by making jokes out of everything. He could be subjected to the worst of human misery and find a way to make someone laugh. While it is morbid, it is a coping mechanism. After one deployment to Afghanistan and three to Iraq, humor is his way of coping through the stress and scars - both physical and emotional - in which he was subjected to in the "Sand Box." He doesn't have many friends outside of the Corps as he finds it incredibly difficult to relate to the mundane problems of the "real world."

While thoughts of suicide have plagued him since his return home, he isn't one to give in to such things - or rather, hasn't yet. It isn't that he hates living, it is that he hates living with the demons of his past and what he had to do to survive in what he considered a pointless war that resulted in nothing more than devastation for devastation's sake. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he is searching for something to live for; he is searching for something worth fighting for.

Background:
At the ripe age of 18, fresh out of highschool and full of naievette and bad ideas, Dusty met with his local Marine Corps recruiter after deciding that college was not for him. He didn't want to join the army, as he had been told repeatedly by his Uncle - a USMC Vietnam Vet - that they were "too soft," and he didn't want to join the Navy because the same Uncle had told him not so nice things about them. He wanted to be the best. And his recruiter was all too eager to fill his head with tales of adventure, women, action and everything else an 18 year old wanted to hear.

Three months later he was graduating boot camp - a lean, green, killing machine. Six months after that, his boots touched down in the rocky mountains of Afghanistan.