Private Ignat Aleksandrov

Cheerful, profane, and always able to find drinkable alcohol, Ignat Aleksandrov is everyone's favorite defector.  Formerly an adult film actor in Tiblisi (or so he claims, despite the complete lack of evidence for a Georgian porn industry), Ignat allegedly enjoyed an early adulthood of wanton debauchery before being swept up in one of the war's early rounds of conscription.  He managed to stay alive through several years in a logistics company through a combination of luck and malingering before becoming sufficiently disgruntled to defect in the summer of 1999.

After being debriefed by the DIA (which didn't yield much useful information), Ignat spent the winter on a labor detail.  Then the 5th ID's S-1 decided he was no real security risk and grabbed him to fill out a dismount team in 4-12 Cavalry.  He performed well and without apparent reservations, though he was probably more valuable as a linguist than a scout.  Still, the remaining cav leadership was never comfortable having him (or a handful of other Soviet defectors) around, so they took the opportunity to hand him off to 1/5th Aviation when the gun truck conversion came along.

The 1/5th found Ignat to be mostly lacking in the skills necessary to be a first-line gun truck crewman.  Without any real skills as a gunner, driver, or maintainer, he's been relegated to serving as a dismount or bodyguarding the support elements, assignments which he accepts without complaint.  Like most Georgians from a working-class background, his education was generally poor but did include early Russian lessons, so he's effectively bilingual.  He had fragmentary English when he was captured (learned, he claims, from bootleg Betamax movies), and it's since improved enough that he generally can communicate and translate effectively for his new American comrades.

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A well-toned 5'10" with a roguish grin and surprisingly good dental work, Ignat at least has the looks to back up his claims of prior employment.  Since his capture/defection, he's let his hair grow out so he looks even more piratical, though he spends an inordinate amount of time keeping his beard well-trimmed - a small mark, he claims, of a civilized man in uncivilized times.

Like most of the ex-Soviet defectors now serving with American forces, Ignat's original gear was confiscated when he came over.  After arriving at 4-12 Cavalry, he re-equipped from cast-offs and battlefield gleanings.  He wears issued US Army BDUs, but his flak vest and web gear are ex-Bundeswehr in Flecktarn speckle-pattern camouflage.

Ignat carries a well-worn ex-Belgian FNC-80, one of the orphans of 4-12's arms room, for ammunition and magazine commonality with the unit's M16s.  His backup weapon, carried across his back in a hand-sewn scabbard, is a stockless pump-action shotgun, which he "likes to keep handy for close encounters."