Editing Black Flag (section)

===Background===

Ward Fitzwarren grew up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud; hardly the only one of his generation to do so. His parents were concerned with the specter of Communist Russia gone nuclear, and the pictures they painted of nations good and bad resonated with Ward. He grew up safe in the knowledge that Uncle Sam would defend him from those devilish Communists. His family were hardworking, intelligent people, but poor; there were no opportunities for them to do better at the time. Ward found himself frustrated by something similar. He rapidly developed a temper.

The week after his twentieth birthday, he was selected for service by the draft lottery. There were no strings to be pulled. Uncle Sam had chosen him to defend the more fortunate sons.

Very well, Ward said to himself. Such was the duty of a citizen to their nation. Socrates, his favourite high school teacher had told him, took poison rather than escape, because the state had ordered his death and having benefited by it, he felt it was only right. Ward accepted his fate, but his temper was not to be denied.

He was a gifted soldier - and a terrible subordinate. If it had not been such a bloody war, he would have suffered for that... Instead, his captain decided one day to put his name forward in response to an appeal made by the Army back home. Ward was one of four chosen for Project EXCALIBUR.

The first week of the experiments saw one of the four die. Ward, the man who would become Old Glory, and their friend didn't have time to mourn. The second week of the experiments, with some visible improvement in their strength, exercises had been added to the experiments. By the end of a month, there were only two.

Also by the end of the month, the developments appeared to have faded. EXCALIBUR was shut down; continual use of the drugs seemed required for improvement, and their production was far too expensive. Ward and his new friend, Tim Patterson, were shipped back to their units.

Three months later Ward ran to rescue a friend. His speed over the ground was flat-out impossible for a human, and when he returned to his unit, his uniform was found to have sustained seven separate bullet holes. Ward himself was uninjured.

Subsequent attempts to duplicate EXCALIBUR's success never quite gelled. Oftentimes the subjects of the experiments went mad, or became freakish, obviously inhuman things. Sometimes both. A consensus was eventually reached that the first round of EXCALIBUR treatments had had some unnoticed flaw, some issue which would cost a great many lives to isolate and duplicate. But Patterson and Fitzwarren were used extensively through Vietnam, and became public figures toward the end of the conflict, with the manufactured identities of Old Glory and True Blue.

Ward, however, was no longer happy. His country had failed him. Uncle Sam had used him, risked him, repeatedly, in countless ways. As he saw it, the EXCALIBUR four had been condemned - he and Patterson had merely been strong enough, lucky enough, to survive. What he saw of Vietnam didn't endear him to their way of life, either. And an insertion mission into Russia convinced him that Communism was more than just a threat to America - it was a threat to himself.

Nobody had the solution. Everybody blundered along hoping one would be created. Everybody seemed to believe it was worth keeping the dead weight alive as they did.

True Blue went AWOL in spectacular fashion while in the middle of a publicity tour in Germany. In one night explosions rocked East and West Berlin governmental institutions. The barracks in which he was housed was also destroyed - the only survivor being Old Glory.

The two fought a public and private war for the next four decades... until the invaders finally found something which could bring Old Glory down.

Black Flag didn't see them as being any better. They were an army; that meant they had a government. Leaders. A gang, Flag could respect. A network of gangs, where people could vouch for one another along the chain, that was understandable. But that wasn't what had happened.

The ultimate nation had arrived, giving him an ultimate target. And while he'd never admit it, he also felt he owed them a blow for his one-time friend Tim, the man as betrayed by America as himself - the man who he could never make admit that, no matter what.

[[Necessary Evil]]