Federal LEO or Other Jobs for Unfazeable Killer in 1953

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DeadParrot

Since he has proven himself as a combat engineer leader, possible some base commander might want Tony to oversee the construction of new runways and hangers as the base is upgraded due to Cold War concerns. Especially if local union/mafia/other issues are slowing the construction. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" could be the relationship between the CO and Tony on how Tony keeps things on schedule.

Note that this doesn't require a base commander and could be any man in a place of power, corporate or political. Remember, like in WWII, almost all the officers who commanded platoons, companies or battalions at the front for six months or so, with another six months of staff duty in theatre, were officers with Reserve commissions.

Most of them, after doing their bit in the war, went back to their civilian lives, where they might be gunwriters and Border Police (Bill Jordan), gunwriters and high school history teachers (Jeff Cooper), gunwriters, novelists and Hollywood screenwriters (Jack Lewis) or any number of other things that aren't gun-writers, but those others would probably have more money and influence in their regular lives. Even the Reserve officers who continued to serve in the military after Korea might be better known for their civilian pursuits, like gunwriter, former Border Patrol and military officer Charles Askins.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of men who served as officers in the Army or Marine Corps Reserve and fought in Korea on the same battlefields as Tony Manzano did went on to continue their civilian careers in a wide range of different areas. Corporate executives, politicians, small-town Sheriffs, lumber mill foremen, lawyers, even, hypothetically, adventurous types with unwise schemes where the assistance of a steady, ruthless man like Tony Manzano could be helpful, if they can pitch it to him in a way that lets him imagine himself as on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Originally Posted by thorr-kan

I'd echo Marshall Services or one of the outdoor branches. Alternatively, a state outdoor agency might be an option, especially someplace like Maine, Alaska, or Montana.

Yep, those would all work.

As would, to take an example of a classic noir plot, being an investigator for a prosecutor in a corrupt city, where the elected prosecutor (who fought in Korea as a Reserve officer), doesn't trust the local police department or their chief, an enforcer for the political machine of the other party in the city.

I know I emphasized Tony Manzano's rural roots, but I should have been clearer and perhaps added in some GURPS terms. It's true that he was raised on a Native American reservation in New Mexico where people farm, ranch and hunt for a living. And he did spend nearly all of his time outside, with outside hobbies that he pursued with friends and assorted relatives.

But Tony was always the worst tracker, the one who couldn't sneak as close to the rabbit before taking the shot and the one who needed his friends to navigate the way home if they went somewhere unfamiliar. In GURPS terms, he has no special Talent for the outdoors, stalking or doing cool snake-eating survival stuff. He just has amateur hobby levels in that kind of stuff, skill level 9-11, because every kid did these things a lot.

What he was good at, as a kid, was hitting those rabbits, even if he had to take the shots at two or three times the distance as his more stealthy friends did. And he was an expert at scrounging parts to use to keep the 'motorcycles' (built from scavenged WWII stuff) he and a few friends had, not to mention acquiring avgas from scrapped planes to run the motorcycles.

Tony worked at Oxnard Field from 1945-1947 scrapping and salvaging WWII aircraft after the war. He also had a father and grandfather who were gunsmiths and he worked in their workshop shed with them ever since he was a tiny kid. All the boys in his family did, and they were taught to shoot, too.

So, an outdoorsy upbringing, but the skills he ended up with made him a great Combat Engineer, great combat soldier and small-unit leader, but he'd also be a good cop in any city. Basically, if it requires nerves and the controlled application of violence, he could do it well. Even if there are complicated technical parts, construction equipment, demolition, etc., he's your man.

But if you ask him to track someone through wilderness, investigate the breeding rate of bears in a National Park or demonstrate the stealth and fieldcraft of trained Special Forces snipers or something, and you'd get amateur skill levels. Well, he could shoot well, within regular rifle ranges, but his Camouflage, Stealth and Survival skills are skill levels at around 9-11.

I will be rolling for him to maybe try out for Special Forces, once I've read a couple of books I acquired on the selection process for the first in 1952 and the few intakes after that, but I'm sort of expecting Tony to wash out of that training once they figure out that he's a great soldier, great combat engineer and a great leader, but he might not have the GURPS IQ, DX and HT skill levels to make it through Special Forces training. It will depend how highly they value combat experience versus technical competence in fieldcraft and survival.

Originally Posted by DeadParrot

I'd suggest Merchant Marine, but that's more of a pre-WWII trope, and I've read too much Louis L'Amour.

He grew up in New Mexico! Surrounded by desert and mountains! He'd never even seen the ocean before he joined the Army and he can't swim. ;-)

In Korea, he learned to make barges, bridges and floating docks, as well as using boats to transport heavy machinery over rivers, though. But he doesn't have any Seamanship skill and probably not even a default in it. :-)

Originally Posted by DeadParrot

Contracting with an international construction firm specializing in hot spots has options, too.

Yep. Basically any Reserve officer he served with at the front lines could be an executive for a mining consortium, oil and gas company, or an engineering firm trying to contract with the Belgian, French or Portuguese governments in various rebellious colonies in Africa.

[adm]

Given his described combat experience, I would give him more than hobby skill in camouflage.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

Given his described combat experience, I would give him more than hobby skill in camouflage.

Nearly all of his combat, through August to December 1950, took place fighting over fixed positions. Trenches and rifle pits the engineers dug or sandbags they erected. There were about three weeks of combat at the Pusan perimeter where both sides knew exactly where the others were, because they were shelling each other from close enough range for grenades to be thrown over.

At least for what I've covered so far in my research for his unit, they've been either assaulting defensive position with bazookas and improvised bombs, or they've been dug in somewhere they captured from the enemy and defending it while others retreat. There hasn't been much, if any, stealthy movement or, indeed, any kind of movement where they leave hard cover unless it's part of an attack made in force.

And digging in has been a major problem, in that they spent months on bare rock. They had to import sandbags to build defensive positions, but it was pretty hard to make a bunch of sandbags on a bare rock surface look like anything natural to people who lived around there and knew that mountain didn't used to have anything on its slope.

There was this one time that Manzano led a composite unit of survivors walking back to friendly lines after his unit was overrun and the road blocked, so most of their vehicles could not make it. Theoretically, they could have hid, but as far as I can figure out the distances and maps, combined with reports from survivors, there was never time to stop to use Camouflage. They kept moving the whole time, because they were trying to out-distance pursuing enemies and those who stopped were captured or killed.

Manzano definitely learned Camouflage to IQ-level in boot camp. And he knows fox holes and firing positions should be camouflaged, so he's increased it over his four months of war, by asking questions of the experienced NCOs. But Tony's Attributes are just not high enough for a point or two to get him immediately to skill 12+. By the end of 1950, Tony has Camouflage at skill 11, and really wishes they had more opportunities to use it, or just could spend a day not in direct contact with the enemy.

On the bright side, his Unfazeable means he can make skill checks without penalties when a long list of officers in his division have been hospitalized due to too many failed Fright Checks. Numerous units had more casualties than their entire TO&E in just a few months, while replacements were arriving from garrison units in Japan and the KATUSA program, neither of which supplied enough officers.

When Manzano was battlefield-promoted to 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, his entire battalion, which had numbered 977 all ranks before the battle of Kunu-Ri, had one officer still capable of performing his duties. All others were captured, killed or evacuated to hospitals. So, his first few days as a 2nd Lieutenant had him in command of the whole D Company, though, sadly, the survivors did not number even a full platoon.

When they started to rebuild the 2d ECB, which they did while they were still performing combat engineering duties at the front (though the battalion was officially listed as combat ineffective), less than half of the officers they could round up had any engineering education or training. Manzano acquired a superior, a Captain, USMA '46, who officially commanded D Company, but that worthy belonged to the Ordnance branch and had been stationed in Japan for the past five years, since the end of WWII. At least he understood bombs, theoretically, but neither combat nor combat engineering were subjects Manzano's new boss had much experience in.

Given how much Manzano has had to focus on learning new things ever since he got to Korea, I somehow suspect that he'll never think of digging a proper foxhole for himself. He'll probably fall asleep in a bulldozer when he can't force his eyes to stay open any longer, and have to rely on savvy NCOs to keep him from getting killed, as he has a distressing tendency to simply ignore personal danger while getting on with his job.

If there is time for him to learn his job properly at some point over the next year of doing it, maybe he'll raise his Camouflage skill. Ideally, though, he'll manage to hang on to a small headquarter element which includes some loyal soldiers who'll tuck their goal-oriented, mission-focused commanding officer into a camouflaged fighting pit from time to time and maybe make sure he sleeps sometimes.