Liberty NAAS: "The Staff"
©1999 Doug Iannelli

Cpt. Andrew Tauch, USN
Commander, NAAS Liberty, age 47
Race: Caucasian
Description: Tauch is a tall, dumpy looking, chain-smoking shell of a man who walks with a slight limp. His graying brown hair that is thinning and perpetually unkept. A drooping moustache and sharp facial features present the impression of a worn-out soul with deep dark eyes within a drawn, pursed face. Tauch always wears his khaki uniform with his minor collection of awards and ribbons tacked on it accompanied by his "NAAS Liberty" ball-cap that looks like he's been wearing it since he was commissioned. Tauch speaks with a nasally Southern-drawl.

Your Impression: Tauch's burnt-out, and perhaps rightfully so. With his time in and rank, Liberty's about as far from any professional ambitions you can imagine he might have had earlier in his career. He seems to view everything as a hassle and completely lacks any command presence. He's never mentioned what got him this assignment and no one's had the audacity to ask, but your best guess is that he's just an underachiever and this assignment is the Navy's way of letting him know his services are no longer required. You get along with him okay, and he seems to afford you a level of respect in accordance with your experience, rank, and position among the staff.

Lt. Marlon Galloway, USN
Former Sea Stallion Helicopter Pilot and ad hoc Executive Officer, NAAS Liberty, 38
Race: Caucasian
Description: Galloway is of average height and build, with slightly graying sandy-brown hair parted down the middle and a perpetual grin on his face. He's rarely caught without a coffee cup within arm's reach and smokes Swisher Sweet cigarillos. Galloway speaks with a non-descript, mid-Western twang.

Your Impression: Having been busted-down to nearly the same rank, you and Galloway are kindred spirits at Liberty. Marlon's got a wild side that he sometimes has difficulty suppressing and is prone to sudden outbursts of locker-room humor. The lack of women at Liberty is obviously taking its toll on his overactive libido. A few too many drinks with his crew chief, Sparks, back in Louisiana found them taking a joy ride in his helicopter with Sparks (an enlisted man) at the helm. The subsequent landing on top of a couple of parked cars in a Wal-Mart parking lot got them both shipped-off to Liberty. Galloway, for all his faults, is a good man that actually cares about his performance when he's not inebriated or distracted. He serves as unofficial XO by virtue of his rank and his lack of other specified duties.

PO3 Kenneth (Kenny) Sparks, USN
Rotary-Wing Aircraft Crew Chief, 21
Race: Caucasian
Description: Sparks is a tall, gangly young man with curly blonde hair and a handle-bar moustache. To many of the staff, Sparks is stand-offish and portrays a cynical outlook on life that is really just a mask for his dry sense of humor. He is clannish, however, and tends to stick close to his partner-in-crime and former pilot, Galloway. He has very little good to say about the Navy and even less about Tauch. Sparks smokes Marlboro 100's.

Your Impression: By virtue of the fact that you and Galloway associate with one another often, you have been afforded the opportunity to get to know Kenny a little better than the others and to see through his brooding facade. Behind the scowling countenance is a closet-wildman just like Galloway waiting to escape. He's just a little more guarded about who he exposes this to.

PO2 David McDermott, USN
Personnel Clerk, 26
Race: Caucasian
Description: McDermott is the geek of the bunch: short and thin, with bristly black hair and glasses. He's also Liberty's only resident white-collar offender, and is consistently the butt of harassment by some of the other men doing "harder" time. McDermott has a very nervous manner that can really annoy people. He's here to make sure all of the paperwork regarding the Station and its staff is properly filed and annotated, provided, that is, he doesn't resume his activities of skimming Department of the Navy payroll sheets. He's a damn good poker player though, although he can't escape the inevitability that everyone else thinks he's cheating.

Your Impression: McDermott strikes you as a little weasel, and, back in your enlisted days, you might have fallen in with the other men in giving him a hard time. Now, rank and stature have forced you to bite your tongue. You are very careful to go over your paychecks thoroughly since you learned why he was sent to Liberty.

PFC Ronald Doty, USMC
Fixed-Wing Aircraft Mechanic, 20
Race: Caucasian
Description: Doty's a short, stout, corn-fed Nebraka lad with light-brown hair, freckles, and a boyish-face. He doesn't say a lot, but when he does, it's usually directed towards Spacek because if there's one thing Doty evidently does not like, it's "niggers." Doty spends alot of time in the gym, and can benchpress nearly 400 pounds. He eats like a horse and uses Copenhagen snuff. Evidently, Doty was involved in a barracks brawl that nearly resulted in the death of another Marine.

Your Impression: Doty's a good hard-working kid jaded by backwoods ignorance and traditional racial biases. You have no problem with him, but then you're an officer, and white. You sure as hell wouldn't want to have to take a punch from the guy, though.

SN John Pavliska, USN
Seabee, 35
Race: Caucasian
Description: Pavliska's a short, dumpy-looking man with a beer gut and a rapidly balding brown pate. He seems to know a little about everything and someone everywhere in the world. Not that he thinks he's exceptionally intelligent, he's just an amicable, friendly guy that likes to talk. Pavliska made the mistake of smuggling some C-4 away to his parent's Virginia farm and getting caught when his father attempted to use the material to remove a tree stump near a barn. The explosion and resulting fire destroyed the structure and when the fire marshal's investigation found military-grade explosive material in the ashes, Pavliska won a vacation at Liberty.

Your Impression: John's just a nice guy, you really can't say that enough. If anyone, by virtue of their personality, doesn't belong stuck out in this shit-hole, it's Pavliska. But, being the happy-go-lucky type that he is, he never complains and just keeps on smiling. He has made attempts to become friendly with all of the staff members to varying degrees of success, but no one dislikes him. You can see how he might actually know all the people he claims to have made acquaintances with by virtue of his outgoing personality.

SR Carl Pleasant, USN
Radio Operator, 29
Race: African American
Description: Pleasant is a soft-spoken, natural giant of a man with a clean-shaven head. He wears gold wire-rimmed glasses. He is a Black Muslim and spends much of his time reading the Koran and writing letters to relatives. He is interesting in that, rather than taking an antagonistic approach to dealing with Doty's prejudices, he often sits down and hold lengthy debates with the man over such issues as religion and bigotry. He is a truly intelligent and well-read man. Carl has never spoken of what he did to wind up here, but the rumor is that it had to do with a former CO who happened to be a fundamentalist Christian.

Your Impression: Pleasant is a true believer in the peaceful interpretation of his religion. However, you're inclined to believe it's Carl's size and not is message that results in a more civil response from Doty than that received by Spacek. One thing's for sure, the guy's an electronics genius.

SR James Fuller, USN
Heavy Equipment Mechanic, 24
Race: Caucasian
Description: Fuller is a fit, short, red-headed young man with short wiry hair and silver-rimmed glasses. Once a devout Christian, Fuller went off the deep end when his wife ran off with a local Church of Christ minister at Coronado. Rather than pursue justice in the civil courts of California, Fuller sought it from behind the wheel of a huge bulldozer - destroying the offending minister's car and a good portion of his house of worship. Now Fuller is a brooding, angry man with an extremely short fuse.

Your Impression: If anyone at Liberty has the potential to disintegrate into a "tower shooter," it's Fuller. You take special care to monitor his psychological health and have, on several occasions, attempted to go to Fuller to counsel him privately only to be turned away upon finding him weeping in his bunk.

SR Julius Spacek, USN
Corpsman, 19
Race: African American
Description: Spacek is the anti-thesis to Pleasant - a thin rail of a man that has steadfastly resisted any attempts by the Navy and Pleasant to remove the "hood" in him. He comically endorses and displays all of the stereotypes of a "gangsta" from Comptom (his actual place of origin). His deep dark face and arms bear the vivid pink scars of his days as a trouble-maker back in the world. He likes to chew of drinking straws when not smoking Cool cigarettes.

Your Impression: Of all the staff at Liberty, Spacek is the one with the history you are the most educated about. It seems that along with packing his smart-ass street attitude with him when he shipped off to the Navy, he also brought along a nasty drug habit. He was eventually caught breaking into the controlled substances of the infirmary at Bethesda and, having failed several attempts to rehabilitate his addiction, was sent to Liberty to serve as your medical assistant. It's a shame really, Julius has the skills to be a damn good corpsman if he'd just grow up and realize what a moron he presents himself as.

PVT. Alejo Miguel Gonzales, USMC
Infantryman, 20
Race: Hispanic
Description: Gonzales is the Mexican-equivalent of Spacek with one great exception: Gonzales enlisted in Marines to be given an opportunity to do more damage than he could on the streets of East L.A. Unfortunately for Pvt. Gonzales, no wars materialized and the Corps didn't take too kindly to him knifing a Saudi Arabian sergeant over an obscene hand gesture. Gonzales is small, but fit. He wears his hair in a Ranger-cut and sports a long scar on his left cheek. To Gonzales, being a Marine is supposed to mean killing people and he has little use for any of the other duties he might be called upon to do as part of his service obligation.

Your Impression: Gonzales is enraptured by the machismo image and extremely lazy when it comes to everyday work. He might have made a good combat trooper if he could have just controlled his quasi-homicidal warrior ethic and been patient enough to wait for the next war. Fortunately for everyone, Gonzales' loud mouth seems to satisfy is desire to let all around him know what his true calling is. He bears watching though.

PVT Vincent Degrassi, USMC
Quartemaster, 28
Race: Caucasian
Description: Degrassi's a skinny Italian man from the Bronx, as is readily apparent by his thick accent. Another victim of inability to leave his old ways behind upon entering military service, Vincent was busted for running a small black-market scheme involving tax-free liquor and tobacco products while stationed in Siganella, Italy. Always looking for the angle, Degrassi's still somehow able to come up with contraband items and sells them at exhorbatant prices to the other staff members. He has only recently emerged from hot water with the CO over some booze (expressly forbidden at Liberty) he somehow imported onto the facility a few months ago. Degrassi has short, black, curly hair and a dark complexion. He has a devilish smile and seems to smoke, although only when other staff members are running low on their supply of cigarettes.

Your Impression: Degrassi is the penultimate Italian player, straight out of some dime store novel. He plays down his role as the provider of things forbidden, but you all know where to go when a special occasion comes round and you need something to celebrate. He's definitely an adherent to the code of silence, too. No one has ever been busted by him ratting them out the few times the CO has caught wind of his extracurricular activites.