Post by Gottfried Schmitt on Feb 6, 2010 6:03:01 GMT
Welcome to Issuing Orders, enjoyed your app, especially the history section, the Sample section was nice as well, but a little short for any higher rank. You've earned the rank of Feldwebel which still allows you to fly.
If you have any questions please feel free to check out the "Beginner's Guide" and if all else fails there are plenty of Staff members and Veteran members alike that should be able to answer your questions.
-JT
((Hello, I was recruited by Ryan Neale.))
Account E-Mail: steel.blue@live.com
Name: Greta Lovisa Schmitt
Nationality:
Germany (Bavaria)
Character History:
Greta grew up on a small farm in Bavaria, growing hops with her father Johann, mother Freida, and brother, Gottfried. She might be there still, had an accident not occurred when she was fourteen which left her family without its main provider. On their farm, the Schmitts had a few large draft horses, one of which was known to be fairly skittish. While mucking stalls early one morning, she heard a commotion outside in the barn corridor. Looking around the corner, she saw her father against the wall of the barn, crumpled to one side with blood streaming from his temple and his nose. The skittish horse was kicking wildly, eyes rolling. By the time she managed to calm the horse enough to get to Johann, he had fallen unconscious. After three days of excruciating pain the doctor could only somewhat ease, Johann succumbed to the injury, leaving the main working of the farm to Gottfried. Greta never found out what caused the horse to spook.
Under the care of Gottfried, who was a poet first and no hard laborer, the farm failed to flourish. Bills mounted, and the land was parceled off piece by piece to those to which the family owed money. The stress of losing her husband and then her livelihood took its toll on Freida, who began a slow but steady decline over the next two years, resulting in her eventual death. No true cause could be determined, but in true romantic fashion friends of the family whispered she had died of a broken heart. Neither Greta nor Gottfried found anything ‘romantic’ about their mother’s passing as it left the siblings to fend for themselves, most of Gottfried’s inheritance long since eaten up by the family’s debts.
With little land left to speak of and only each other to care for, Gottfried as owner of the remaining farm decided to sell it and move to a more populated area of the country, hoping through his poetry he might support himself and his younger sister. Greta brooked no argument and, at Gottfried’s urging, applied herself to her studies rather than finding work to supplement their income right away. The next several years found the siblings eking out a meager but adequate existence, during which time Greta discovered a natural love of flying which would lead her to study aviation as a career path. By nineteen Greta was working as a small-time pilot near her brother’s flat, making little money but finally feeling that things were looking up for herself and her brother. On a small vacation to Munich the next year, she met a charismatic American who had adopted her country as his own. Enamored by the handsome foreigner, she wrote to her brother to inform him of her plans to extend her stay in Munich, where she continued to work in low-end aviation jobs when they were available (and when an employer would consider hiring a woman).
Meanwhile, as Nazi Party ideals rose in acceptance, Greta gave her support to the cause that looked so likely to restore her country to its previous greatness. Though she was not that well versed in politics, the party’s claims seemed promising, and she was more than happy to join the fervor along with many others. It was not until 1938, when her handsome American graduated and joined the Luftwaffe, that old the old fear of abandonment began to creep upon her again. She might have simply waited patiently for her man to return as a good woman should, but matters were compounded by a letter she received a scant month after his departure from a friend of her brother’s, detailing a serious illness which was affecting the last of her immediate family. The letter requested her immediate return, in the hope that her presence might spark an otherwise elusive improvement in the man. Unfortunately, even with her in attendance, what had started as a mere cold progressed into bad pneumonia which filled Gottfried’s lungs and ravaged his body. “I am drowning from the inside out,” he once remarked to Greta, desperately laying down lines of verse until coughing fits tore the pencil from his hand. Eventually the illness took him, and Greta was left with nothing but his notes and a scant inheritance as a reminder of her late brother’s life.
Knowing the plight of her country and unable to stand the thought of losing it after losing so much else dear to her, she hatched a mad scheme to simultaneously give her work and support her country. First cutting her hair short and binding herself, she ‘borrowed’ both some of her brother’s ill-fitting clothes and his name, leaving Greta in that tiny flat. ‘Gottfried’ then applied to join the Luftwaffe, making ‘his’ way through training with difficulty. The combined stress of keeping her identity secret and surviving the training in one piece weighed heavily on Greta’s mind, but life had prepared her for nothing if not hardship, and in true German fashion she persevered. Where other soldiers kept photographs of family on them, Greta kept just two pictures, one of herself, so that when she wrote letters home she could claim to be writing to her younger sister, and one of a Nazi party star, Hanna Reitsch, a famous female pilot she secretly looked to for inspiration. Afraid to carry a photo of him for fear it would arouse suspicion, Greta could instead carry a picture of her American only in her heart.
Greta spent much of her time avoiding her fellow soldiers, speaking little in case someone became suspicious of her. Her gruff exterior was the subject to some lighthearted joking among her peers, which she bore without complaint until another soldier, Weiss, made a wisecrack about her voice being high like a girl’s. With a one-two punch taught to her in jest by the American during their time in Munich, Greta bloodied the man’s nose and stopped any teasing along that line of thought before it could progress further. Though he sported several bruises and some blood for the insult, Weiss congratulated her on her hit, and the two eventually became fast friends. Greta explained eventually to Weiss that a farm accident in her youth had killed her father and left her voice damaged and subject to much ridicule, hence the blow she had given him at its reminder. She never heard him mention it to the others, but for one reason or another that line of teasing tapered off. The insults about her backwoods country accent were another matter altogether, though.
Things went swimmingly for a time, Greta’s unwillingness to attend trips to brothels and the like with the other men (for obvious reasons) leading Weiss to coin for her the nickname ‘Gut Gott’-fried, which the other men found clever enough to stick. She laughed the matter away with good humour, telling the men she had a lady back home awaiting her return, and she would certainly be a ‘Gut’ Gottfried for that Fraulein.
Other than those few moments of attention, Greta worked hard to keep a low profile and not stand out as anything more than an average pilot. She kept her record for the most part clean and did what was asked of her quietly and without complaint, unwilling to draw more attention to herself than was necessary. She would leave the spotlight to those who were actually supposed to serve in the military.
Military Rank:
I would like a rank I could fly with, but if my application does not fit a flight rank, I will take what you see fit to assign me.
Writing Sample:
Scenario: You’re alone in enemy air space. Your wingman has been shot down, and you have a feeling that an enemy plane is stalking you. What does your character do, what does he feel? What is he thinking?
“Verdammt,” Greta muttered under her breath, too low to hear over the reverberations of the fighter’s engine. Clouds swirled around her plane in a suffocating blanket of next to nil visibility, and her wingman had succumbed to enemy fire scant minutes before. The aircraft that took him down, some blasted British bird, had followed her through this cloudbank, and she could only hope that he was currently as lost as she. Getting shot down over enemy territory would end badly for her, death being perhaps the kindlier outcome should the event come to pass. After all, if she survived and the Tommys caught her, she would probably be executed anyway. She knew just enough English to tell any captors she didn’t know English, and the day they gave valuable information to a soldier like her was the day the French rolled over and gave their country away without a fight. Not that she would be surprised at a coward’s surrender from the enemy; the entirety was a contemptible lot who showed their strength by ganging up on her own land in its time of weakness. If things went as planned, their attempt to run the Fatherland into the ground would be their ultimate undoing.
The engine roared still, masking any audible sign of a possible enemy approach. She could, of course, rise above the clouds and regain her sight, but without support she would be vulnerable to the other craft, should it be waiting skyward for her appearance. Indecision held her for a moment, and she felt her breath catch as the shadow of one cloud scudded over the top of another. The radio was under her hand before she could register having moved, and she called in her return to the operator on the other end. The last thing the Luftwaffe needed was to lose two planes when one kill could be avoided. It was a rationalization, but in the end was a live coward who didn’t lose her country’s aircraft worse than a brave dead man who would not retreat? On confirmation from the other end, she breathed deeply and tightened her grip on the joystick. She would have to exit the clouds one way or another, and the thought of the enemy bird awaiting her appearance set her heart to racing. “Here I stand on the brink of madness,” she breathed, the line of poetry as familiar to her as the beating of her heart. Another hesitant moment, and Greta retreated behind the cool façade of Gottfried, looking in the persona she had created for the solace she so desperately required. Though her hands still shook, her brother was dead, and who could harm a dead man? The last dregs of cloud whispered over her cockpit as she crested the bank, bright blue sky greeting her from beyond. The British plane was nowhere in sight, but Gottfried kept a vigilant eye out for its rising form. There would be much explaining to do upon return, and mourning for the lost wingman as well, but for now simple survival was enough to occupy this pilot’s mind.
If you have any questions please feel free to check out the "Beginner's Guide" and if all else fails there are plenty of Staff members and Veteran members alike that should be able to answer your questions.
-JT
((Hello, I was recruited by Ryan Neale.))
Account E-Mail: steel.blue@live.com
Name: Greta Lovisa Schmitt
Nationality:
Germany (Bavaria)
Character History:
Greta grew up on a small farm in Bavaria, growing hops with her father Johann, mother Freida, and brother, Gottfried. She might be there still, had an accident not occurred when she was fourteen which left her family without its main provider. On their farm, the Schmitts had a few large draft horses, one of which was known to be fairly skittish. While mucking stalls early one morning, she heard a commotion outside in the barn corridor. Looking around the corner, she saw her father against the wall of the barn, crumpled to one side with blood streaming from his temple and his nose. The skittish horse was kicking wildly, eyes rolling. By the time she managed to calm the horse enough to get to Johann, he had fallen unconscious. After three days of excruciating pain the doctor could only somewhat ease, Johann succumbed to the injury, leaving the main working of the farm to Gottfried. Greta never found out what caused the horse to spook.
Under the care of Gottfried, who was a poet first and no hard laborer, the farm failed to flourish. Bills mounted, and the land was parceled off piece by piece to those to which the family owed money. The stress of losing her husband and then her livelihood took its toll on Freida, who began a slow but steady decline over the next two years, resulting in her eventual death. No true cause could be determined, but in true romantic fashion friends of the family whispered she had died of a broken heart. Neither Greta nor Gottfried found anything ‘romantic’ about their mother’s passing as it left the siblings to fend for themselves, most of Gottfried’s inheritance long since eaten up by the family’s debts.
With little land left to speak of and only each other to care for, Gottfried as owner of the remaining farm decided to sell it and move to a more populated area of the country, hoping through his poetry he might support himself and his younger sister. Greta brooked no argument and, at Gottfried’s urging, applied herself to her studies rather than finding work to supplement their income right away. The next several years found the siblings eking out a meager but adequate existence, during which time Greta discovered a natural love of flying which would lead her to study aviation as a career path. By nineteen Greta was working as a small-time pilot near her brother’s flat, making little money but finally feeling that things were looking up for herself and her brother. On a small vacation to Munich the next year, she met a charismatic American who had adopted her country as his own. Enamored by the handsome foreigner, she wrote to her brother to inform him of her plans to extend her stay in Munich, where she continued to work in low-end aviation jobs when they were available (and when an employer would consider hiring a woman).
Meanwhile, as Nazi Party ideals rose in acceptance, Greta gave her support to the cause that looked so likely to restore her country to its previous greatness. Though she was not that well versed in politics, the party’s claims seemed promising, and she was more than happy to join the fervor along with many others. It was not until 1938, when her handsome American graduated and joined the Luftwaffe, that old the old fear of abandonment began to creep upon her again. She might have simply waited patiently for her man to return as a good woman should, but matters were compounded by a letter she received a scant month after his departure from a friend of her brother’s, detailing a serious illness which was affecting the last of her immediate family. The letter requested her immediate return, in the hope that her presence might spark an otherwise elusive improvement in the man. Unfortunately, even with her in attendance, what had started as a mere cold progressed into bad pneumonia which filled Gottfried’s lungs and ravaged his body. “I am drowning from the inside out,” he once remarked to Greta, desperately laying down lines of verse until coughing fits tore the pencil from his hand. Eventually the illness took him, and Greta was left with nothing but his notes and a scant inheritance as a reminder of her late brother’s life.
Knowing the plight of her country and unable to stand the thought of losing it after losing so much else dear to her, she hatched a mad scheme to simultaneously give her work and support her country. First cutting her hair short and binding herself, she ‘borrowed’ both some of her brother’s ill-fitting clothes and his name, leaving Greta in that tiny flat. ‘Gottfried’ then applied to join the Luftwaffe, making ‘his’ way through training with difficulty. The combined stress of keeping her identity secret and surviving the training in one piece weighed heavily on Greta’s mind, but life had prepared her for nothing if not hardship, and in true German fashion she persevered. Where other soldiers kept photographs of family on them, Greta kept just two pictures, one of herself, so that when she wrote letters home she could claim to be writing to her younger sister, and one of a Nazi party star, Hanna Reitsch, a famous female pilot she secretly looked to for inspiration. Afraid to carry a photo of him for fear it would arouse suspicion, Greta could instead carry a picture of her American only in her heart.
Greta spent much of her time avoiding her fellow soldiers, speaking little in case someone became suspicious of her. Her gruff exterior was the subject to some lighthearted joking among her peers, which she bore without complaint until another soldier, Weiss, made a wisecrack about her voice being high like a girl’s. With a one-two punch taught to her in jest by the American during their time in Munich, Greta bloodied the man’s nose and stopped any teasing along that line of thought before it could progress further. Though he sported several bruises and some blood for the insult, Weiss congratulated her on her hit, and the two eventually became fast friends. Greta explained eventually to Weiss that a farm accident in her youth had killed her father and left her voice damaged and subject to much ridicule, hence the blow she had given him at its reminder. She never heard him mention it to the others, but for one reason or another that line of teasing tapered off. The insults about her backwoods country accent were another matter altogether, though.
Things went swimmingly for a time, Greta’s unwillingness to attend trips to brothels and the like with the other men (for obvious reasons) leading Weiss to coin for her the nickname ‘Gut Gott’-fried, which the other men found clever enough to stick. She laughed the matter away with good humour, telling the men she had a lady back home awaiting her return, and she would certainly be a ‘Gut’ Gottfried for that Fraulein.
Other than those few moments of attention, Greta worked hard to keep a low profile and not stand out as anything more than an average pilot. She kept her record for the most part clean and did what was asked of her quietly and without complaint, unwilling to draw more attention to herself than was necessary. She would leave the spotlight to those who were actually supposed to serve in the military.
Military Rank:
I would like a rank I could fly with, but if my application does not fit a flight rank, I will take what you see fit to assign me.
Writing Sample:
Scenario: You’re alone in enemy air space. Your wingman has been shot down, and you have a feeling that an enemy plane is stalking you. What does your character do, what does he feel? What is he thinking?
“Verdammt,” Greta muttered under her breath, too low to hear over the reverberations of the fighter’s engine. Clouds swirled around her plane in a suffocating blanket of next to nil visibility, and her wingman had succumbed to enemy fire scant minutes before. The aircraft that took him down, some blasted British bird, had followed her through this cloudbank, and she could only hope that he was currently as lost as she. Getting shot down over enemy territory would end badly for her, death being perhaps the kindlier outcome should the event come to pass. After all, if she survived and the Tommys caught her, she would probably be executed anyway. She knew just enough English to tell any captors she didn’t know English, and the day they gave valuable information to a soldier like her was the day the French rolled over and gave their country away without a fight. Not that she would be surprised at a coward’s surrender from the enemy; the entirety was a contemptible lot who showed their strength by ganging up on her own land in its time of weakness. If things went as planned, their attempt to run the Fatherland into the ground would be their ultimate undoing.
The engine roared still, masking any audible sign of a possible enemy approach. She could, of course, rise above the clouds and regain her sight, but without support she would be vulnerable to the other craft, should it be waiting skyward for her appearance. Indecision held her for a moment, and she felt her breath catch as the shadow of one cloud scudded over the top of another. The radio was under her hand before she could register having moved, and she called in her return to the operator on the other end. The last thing the Luftwaffe needed was to lose two planes when one kill could be avoided. It was a rationalization, but in the end was a live coward who didn’t lose her country’s aircraft worse than a brave dead man who would not retreat? On confirmation from the other end, she breathed deeply and tightened her grip on the joystick. She would have to exit the clouds one way or another, and the thought of the enemy bird awaiting her appearance set her heart to racing. “Here I stand on the brink of madness,” she breathed, the line of poetry as familiar to her as the beating of her heart. Another hesitant moment, and Greta retreated behind the cool façade of Gottfried, looking in the persona she had created for the solace she so desperately required. Though her hands still shook, her brother was dead, and who could harm a dead man? The last dregs of cloud whispered over her cockpit as she crested the bank, bright blue sky greeting her from beyond. The British plane was nowhere in sight, but Gottfried kept a vigilant eye out for its rising form. There would be much explaining to do upon return, and mourning for the lost wingman as well, but for now simple survival was enough to occupy this pilot’s mind.