Mal Strom (his mother expected him to be a troublemaker) used to be jovial and easy-going, but that was before the Great War. That was before mustard gas, the trenches, the shelling, doomed human wave assaults, flame-engulfed civilians dancing like burning marionettes, and the stench of littered corpses rotting in no man’s land…
1st Lt. Malcolm ‘Mal’ Strom (Ret.), veteran of the first world war, bears both Infantry and Aviation insignia on his mothballed dress uniform. Originally an infantry soldier, he was eventually transferred to the fledgling US Army Air Service during the war due to his smaller frame, acute eyesight, overall aptitude, and natural dexterity. He started flying reconnaissance missions then graduated to aerial combat… not that reconnaissance was much safer.
During one grueling sortie, Mal’s Spad S.XIII was riddled with flak. With the engine failing, he crash-landed far behind enemy lines. He spent the next few weeks hiding, foraging, evading Huns, stealing, killing (at times), and sneaking his way back to the front-lines.
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He crawled across no man’s land until he finally made it back to the allied side. But he never really made it back. They had all sorts of names for it: ‘shell shock’, ‘war exhaustion’, ‘traumatic hysteria’, ‘soldier’s heart’, or the more kindly meant ‘battle fatigue’. It all amounted to the same thing, Mal was broken. He’d experienced too much. It took him and his doctors quite some time to piece him back together… well after the Armistice. And some pieces are still missing.
Fear: [REDACTED]
Deep Secret: [REDACTED]
Timeline
1893 – Born
1914 – joins US Army (7 year, active duty hitch)
1917 – US joins WW1
1918 – (11-Nov) Armistice
1921 – Finished active service
1925 – Current date (Mal 32 yo)
