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===== Important Information =====
The following is my personal history on my erepublik military career. After this autobiography of sorts is a few important announcements for the eSouth African Shock Troopers. ALL READ ANNOUNCEMENTS. They are extremely important.

========== History of my eMilitary Career ==========

In case any of you weren't aware. I've been actively involved in the military side of the game since I reached the ability fight. Starting out in the United States, the region of Arizona (my home state IRL and one that I currently reside in too) is my eBirthplace. Enough about that though. That's the distant past, back in January and early February when I was still very eYoung to the eWorld.

Once I was able to fight, I enlisted straight into the United States National Guard. I was assigned to the 2nd Division, 6th Platoon. The 2nd Division was a non-combat and non-deployable branch that concentrated on training the new recruits into the ways of the eUS military. It is now know was the "Training Division" or "TD" and currently has over 1,000 recruits in training.

Immediately I looked for something to do. I was interested in starting a military career. Here I got a message from my platoon CO, then Lieutenant Loftedraptor (who would go onto become a Four Star General and the General of the Mobile Infantry before I did. He was dishonorably discharged for making a decision in-game while apparently drunk and pissed). He was searching for a new platoon Sergeant to help him update the tracker and immediately I stepped up and talked to him about my interest. So two days into my military career I was already a sergeant and making friends.

It wasn't long before Loft (who's know for being online 12-14 hours a day 7 days a week. He's 63+ years old and retired and a gamer. He has a life, called family. He just happens to be without a job and made eRep his A Game) was promoted to the newest commanding officer of the entire branch, leaving me to take command of the platoon... three days after becoming a sergeant. So five days into my military career, here I am, platoon CO of the 6th Platoon, 2nd Division, United States National Guard.

After doing this for about two weeks, I went on a two week trip to Ghana, West Africa and so placed my platoon in the very capable hands of my Sergeant of a week and a half. She took full command as I made it clear I would need breathing room once I got back and didn't want to play too much. For about a week I was a freelance officer with no job until I took command of the recently vacated CO spot of the 8th Platoon. 8th Platoon... The Deadly Eighth. The motto? We Are Death. I won the "Most Hardcore Motto" unofficial award for that one. It was at this point that long time friend and commanding officer Loft moved onto the Marines.

When Loft went into the Marines I saw it was time to move on in my own military career. I immediately requested to join the 3rd Division, Cavalry of the United States National Guard. It was the newest deployable branch for the weaker guys until the Army could get back on its feet (the Army was suffering from poor leadership and constant leadership changes, plus organizational and logistical issues). After only about four days as a platoon CO and barely getting an XO, an awesome guy named Mercer, my entire platoon was transferred to the Army to help beef them up.

I didn't like the Army. I didn't want to be part of it. It was in shambles and I was one of the biggest advocates to fully shutting it down and making the 3rd Division, USNG its very capable replacement. Well, Loft left the Marines because he apparently found them boring and instead became the XO of the newly established Mobile Infantry, which was originally the 3rd Division, commanded by Bastion. I left for the Mobile Infantry to become a Quartermaster General (QMG) Assistant and I was made a Captain.

It was for a long time that I held this position in the Mobile Infantry. I made it up to Major and stayed a QMG for a good amount of time until I considered moving from QMG work to potentially commanding a company (made up of multiple platoons) as QMG work is tedious, long and overall, it sucks. Then Bastion stepped down as the CO of the Mobile Infantry. Loft as the XO was quickly confirmed as the new CO of the Mobile Infantry. At this time I sent in my formal request to Loft that I become his new XO in the form of a resumé that explained all my previous posts and the simple fact we've worked with each other for most of each other's military career's and we already had a strong chemistry between our leadership methods.

As the XO, I worked mostly to get the QMG continuing that tip top shape. I worked to get a staff established to do it all without me and with the capacity to supply us as soon as possible. I mostly advised Loft and worked to get the Mobile Infantry as efficient as possible. Also at this time the Mobile Infantry was well over 400 and we were growing fast. It was then that Loft ordered the Mobile Infantry to the Ukraine the day before citizenship was made. Loft resigned shortly thereafter and I became the new CO of the Mobile Infantry as its XO.

I hit the ground running with major problems that the branch faced. We were vastly underfunded. We needed roughly 1,800 gold a week to meet our operational goals. We got 375 gold. Our body count was at 450. I quickly found a new XO in Deificus, former Infantryman and was in the Airborne at the time. I snagged Issues back from the Army to help me run our support operations. I ordered and immediate roll call to get the Mobile Infantry down to size. All people who replied in 24 hours stayed. After 24 and before 48 hours were offered the chance to move to the Home Guard. Any one after that was Discharged.

My goal was to reach 300 men and women down from 450. We achieved this goal and dumped Easy Company. Shortly afterwards we cut down Delta Company and removed it, limiting us to Alpha, Bravo and Charlie, each with roughly 95 men. After total new body count we were at a solid 300 to 310 men and women. I finally pulled out all the ideas I had under Loft, but couldn't do and established two command structures. Operations and Support. Support handled all the sup programs, like the QMGs, Media, JAG, etc. Operations handled day to day operation, such as tracker updating and member checks on the forums vs the google docs. Issues was the support head and Beerman616 was the Operations head.

For a time I worked to get the Mobile Infantry faster and more organized before I decided to increase our capabilities and launched the Marauder Program and an in-house military intelligence program. Marauder never got off its feet due to my retiring of command from the eUS military for an unspecified amount of time and our in-house military intelligence program shut down... or is still going... *wink*.

So here I realized I play eRepublik so much its a job and no longer a game. I came to South Africa after some heavy debate between joining the Marines or going to eIsrael instead. I chose South Africa because I've been the US Ambassador to Peru and South Africa for MONTHS since just after Indonesia and Brazil took over and LexLuthor1 took another job at the State Department. Here I talked to Siroe and Ines about how I could help out, being on good terms with both.

I got offered command of the new South African militaries "deployable branch". This would later become the Shock Troopers. I figured it would be fun as I took some of my old Mobile Infantry officers who I trusted and qualified, namely Issues, Maelyn and Sakyo. There are others but I won't mention them for security reasons. They so far have made up my core staff, each leading a division and Issues becoming my XO. I did not expect the political firestorm that followed.

After bearing with all of the political bull crap that I left America for I started to realize this yet again became a job, no longer a fun game. Leaving South Africa and going somewhere else again is still a compelling idea. I contacted Siroe and told him of a change of command in the Shock Troopers and that I decided to step down and take command of the 3rd Division, get it up and running and then leave South Africa altogether.

===== eSAST Announcements =====

I've stepped down as the CO of the eSouth African Shock Troopers.
I've granted command to by highly qualified and reliable XO, Issues.
I've temporarily taken personal command of the 3rd Division, Airborne/Paratroopers.
Once the Paratroopers are up and running, I will be leaving eSouth Africa, probably permanently.