UNITED STATES COLONIAL MARINE CORPS
2ND BATTALION, 4TH BRIGADE
”They think we're cool 'cus we're so good at blowin' shit up."
— CPL Josh Ray Person
Photo: USCM Lance Corporal Tal Ravis moving through a patch of dense undergrowth during night operations on the Sigma 19 colony.
Tasked with clearing a path through the jungle for armored vehicles, he carries an M39 submachinegun in favor of his bulkier, heavier M56A2.
Tal Ravis is a Smartgunner assigned to Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
-CPL Fort, USCM Combat Camera, June 1st, 2185
Official Record for Transfer
USS Almayer, 2nd Btn., 4th Bde.
► Full Name: Tal Yahalom Ravis
► DOB: May 4, 2165
► Age: 21
► Gender: Male
► Height: 5'9
► Weight: 168 lbs.
► Blood Type: AB+
► Drug Allergies: NKDA
► Birthplace: New York City, New York
► Ethnicity: Jewish (?)
► Personal Items:
🢒 One (1) pair of ESS M56 Profile ballistic goggles w/ tan Nomex cover
🢒 One (1) MS-2000(M2) strobe light marker
🢒 One (1) pair of Oakley M-Frame ballistic sunglasses w/ black lenses
🢒 Two (2) espresso spoons
🢒 One (1) Grammy nomination
► Rank: Corporal
► Assignment: USS Almayer, 2nd Btn., 4th Bde., "Falling Falcons"
► Current Billet: Machine Gunner, Delta Squad, USS Almayer
► Military History:
🢒 October 21, 2184 - Enlisted in the United States Colonial Marine Corps.
🢒 October 31, 2184 - Posted to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.
🢒 January 17, 2185 - Promoted to Private First Class, transferred to Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry - East.
🢒 February 11, 2185 - Page 11 Citation - Lackadaisical appearance and behavior.
🢒 March 22, 2185 - Completed training at ITB, assigned MOS of 0331 (Machine Gunner) and transferred to USS Utah for PDS with 2/5 Marines.
🢒 April 11, 2185 - Page 11 Citation - Unauthorized absence from a Physical Fitness Test.
🢒 April 11, 2185 - Page 11 Citation - Arguing with a Sergeant Major.
🢒 April 15, 2185 - Promoted to Lance Corporal.
🢒 April 21, 2185 - Non-Judicial Punishment for making an profane gesture towards an NCO - 14 days extra duty and 30 days half pay.
🢒 June 2, 2185 - Awarded Combat Action Ribbon during fighting on Sigma 19 colony.
🢒 July 20, 2185 - Non-Judicial Punishment for drawing obscenities on extended operations head wall
- Rank reduction to Private First Class, 14 days extra duty and 30 days forfeiture of half base pay.
🢒 May 11, 2185 - Page 11 Citation - Stamping "Birth Control" on the side of M56B Smartgun using a hand labeler.
🢒 August 6, 2185 - Non-Judicial Punishment for exceeding alcohol limit, throwing a mattress out of extended operations bunk doors, and telling the duty to "fuck off"
- 14 days extra duty and 14 days forfeiture of base pay.
🢒 November 15, 2185 - Page 11 Citation - Lost wallet with USCM ID.
🢒 December 27, 2185 - Page 11 Citation - Posted concerning image of himself on social media.
🢒 February 11, 2186 -Transferred to USS Almayer, assigned to Delta Squad, 2nd Btn., 4th Bde as squad smartgunner.
🢒 March 13, 2186 - Promoted to Lance Corporal.
🢒 March 23, 2186 - Transferred to Advanced Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry - East.
🢒 May 4, 2186 - Transferred to USS Almayer upon completion of Advanced Machine Gunner Course.
🢒 May 25, 2186 - Page 11 Citation - Telling a Marine to "superglue the trigger group" into their M41A for "match-grade accuracy".
🢒 June 26, 2186 - Promoted to Corporal.
► Decorations:
🢒 Combat Action Ribbon
🢒 National Defense Medal
🢒 Space Service Ribbon
🢒 Extended Deployment Service Ribbon
► Biographical Addendum: Tal was born on May 4th, 2165, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district in New York City to two relatively poor blue-collar workers. His biological father, from which his name and faith are derived, left his mother in mid-2170, leaving him fatherless until seven years later when his mother remarried, this time to a native New Yorker with two children. Understandably, Tal believed that he had little in common with his stepdad and stepbrothers, and as such distanced himself from his new family through much of his adolescence, turning instead to the streets of Brooklyn, New York.
Despite attempts at gentrification throughout much of the 21st century, many parts of Brooklyn still remained as low-income, crime-ridden areas well into the 22nd century. For an impressionable young man, with no true role models or guidance throughout his most important developmental years, the life of a hardened thug appealed to him. While he never quite stacked up to either of his stepbrothers, both of whom ended up being accepted into prestigious higher education institutions in the United Americas, his performance in school tanked, and he soon found himself in a quagmire of poor academic performance and waning potential. Instead, his focus became his gang, a small band of friends coming from a similar background who he found refuge with during and after classes, and the group went on to terrorize the neighborhood for several years through their high school educations, committing petty thefts and robberies here and there.
A young Ravis soon found out that this new gang lifestyle, however glamorous in the eyes of another product of a culture of violence, was volatile and unsustainable, as after a botched robbery on a pizza parlor left one dead and two injured, most of his friends were rounded up and arrested in a large-scale investigation by local authorities. Despite being an accomplice to murder, Tal was luckily able to slide under the radar, although the damage had been done. His group was broken up, the ones who were caught having been slapped with lengthy prison sentences, and now he had little to nowhere to go. He lacked any kind of artistic talent - though he did have a single notable contribution to a one-hit wonder that was, with him as a producer by extension, nominated for a Grammy award for Best Rap Song - and his academic records were too abysmal to even remotely consider any kind of higher education, and so, not wanting to be resigned to working a minimum wage job for the rest of his life, he enlisted in the United States Colonial Marine Corps, hoping to find a future killing people and breaking things across the galaxy.
Tal Ravis proved to be the 0331's poster child: rowdy, careless, and seemingly oblivious to rules and regulations, catching a significant amount of flak during his military career as a result. He became a smartgunner in a machine gun section with 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines onboard the USS Utah. Promised action and opportunities to kill people by his recruiter, he was disappointed when his enlistment consisted of little more than carrying a forty-pound M56B Smartgun around deserted colonies far from civilization.
Early on in his enlistment, he showed minor interest in marrying a childhood friend for additional healthcare and housing benefits, though this plan never came into fruition, in part due to a lack of communication between the two and also due to his upcoming deployment. Upon returning from his time aboard the Utah, after witnessing his assistant gunner’s then-wife leave him during their deployment whilst taking most of his money and belongings, he abandoned the idea altogether.
He participated in one notable engagement during his time with 2/5 Marines, for which he was awarded a Combat Action Ribbon, when a large CLF cell was outed on the Sigma 19 colony. Tal participated in the assault on the main compound, firing over 2500 rounds of 10x28mm ammunition and 200 rounds of 10x20mm ammunition over the course of the 13-hour-long siege, and notoriously participated in the routing of CLF forces and subsequent search-and-destroy mission. Setting up the Smartgun at the entrance to a CLF cave network, he was told to engage any and all living beings that attempted to escape as USCM forces dropped two SM-17 air-to-ground missiles and made heavy use of incinerator units and explosives to flush the enemy out from the underground, resulting in the deaths of approximately 200 CLF and CLF-aligned personnel, 28 by his smartgun alone. Two of the bodies within his designated field of fire were later identified to have been pregnant wives of the CLF fighters, leading to him nicknaming his M56B "Birth Control" at the suggestion of his section leader. His commanding officer was less than enthused, however, especially when Tal's section was minorly implicated in a media scandal when images surfaced of him and his squadmates urinating on the corpses of CLF fighters.
During the early stages of the initial siege, Tal came into extremely close (~5 feet) proximity of a CLF fighter attempting to escape the compound, too close and too quickly to engage with his M56B. Undeterred, he drew his backup, an M39 submachinegun, and dispatched the fighter with relative ease. To commemorate this moment, Tal decided to almost immediately mark a tally on his helmet with a black marker borrowed from a squadmate. However, due to his haste, his helmet was oriented incorrectly when he drew the mark, thus making it look more like an underscore when his helmet was actually on. Henceforth, he was nicknamed "Underscore", a name that stuck and has since been dragged along with him throughout his various different assignments.
While investigating what was left of the first compound, Tal found two extremely small, high-quality imported espresso spoons, no doubt former possessions of the CLF garrison, and pocketed them as a war prize. Prior to his redeployment to the Almayer, he punched a hole towards the end of the handle on each spoon, stringing them together on a loop of 550 cord around his neck. Unhappy that he was displaced from his original unit, he now utilizes this trophy spoon necklace to irritate the shit out of his new squadmates.
Effective February 11, 2186, Tal was transferred to 2nd Btn., 4th Bde. aboard the USS Almayer, serving as the designated Smartgunner for Delta Squad. He has run into some difficulty integrating into his new battalion, finding many strange, inexperienced marines with unnaturally-bubbly personalities and non-regulation hair colors and cuts. Convinced this was his old Battalion Commander's doing as a way of getting back at him for the controversy he caused back on Sigma 19, he has taken to skating though the rest of his enlistment contract out of spite for the Marine Corps.
► Known Relationships:
► Show Spoiler
Chibi Leon by Okand37. Huge thanks to her!
(Huge thanks to Okand37 for making this cute boi !)
