Background

Raleigh Kincaid was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on 1962 March 3. His father, Keaton Kincaid, was an alcoholic and a decorated military officer who fought in Korea and would end up fighting in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970, while his mother, Alice Robins was a waitress in a diner. He was an only child and lived slightly above working class. His father was not around for his early childhood, by way of his occupation, so thus an overworked Alice had to do the majority of the parenting. Alice taught Rayleigh compassion and kindness, qualities he couldn’t find in his father. His father was distant, cold and more-often-than-not, absent for long stretches of time. Having a distinguished Army dad was a point of pride for Rayleigh, but some nights he’d wish this weren’t so. That his dad worked a stable nine-to-five and that he could have dinner at the table with both his parents. No one ever gets everything they want, though, and Rayleigh had to make due with the cards he was dealt. When his father came back from Vietnam around 1970, he was worse off than before he left. It seems that he was unable to make peace with whatever had happened while he was in Vietnam, he drank until his liver started to give out. Keaton and Alice would fight often – sometimes physically – and eventually, both decided to divorce in 1972 with Alice taking custody of Rayleigh. Keaton would be involved as the sole victim in a drunk-driving accident later that year, he was pronounced dead on the scene. As a teenager, Rayleigh was slightly above average in high school and loved to play baseball. He played for his school’s baseball team and struck a home-run more than once, receiving a medal for winning a game against a rival high school. He acted out as a result of the grief he experienced after his father died, but shit, who wouldn’t? He enjoyed the athleticism and his paternal grandfather – also a veteran – would start talking to him about possibly joining the army. Rayleigh’s mother was not at all pleased with the prospect of her only son joining the Army but Rayleigh himself was on the fence. Eventually, his mother cut off all contact with his paternal family – too late, though, as the seed was planted in Ray’s mind. After graduating high school in 1979, Ray would spend two years working as a carpenter with his maternal uncle, before applying to ‘enlist’ within the CIA. He would work as a data analyst for a year, before being transferred to the Special Activities Center, after using his father – and grandfather’s – military careers as reason to apply. He received basic military training in 1984 through 1985 and attained the rank of Private, following CIA operations in Afghanistan for a year in early 1987. He would return to the United States to gain more comprehensive training at Camp Peary, Virginia from 1988 to 1991, receiving a degree from Camp Peary that signified he had undergone the training to qualify as an SAC Intelligence Officer. For most of 1992, he assisted training recruits in Camp Peary. Eventually, he was made Team Leader of a small group of agents sent to retrieve weapon caches in Italy, left behind in Operation Gladio. Rayleigh fucked this up, horribly. One of the men under his command got wasted and arrested for a DUI – alongside some of the weapons and false Identification papers. Eventually all men were returned to the US but the damage was done: Raleigh’s first operation was a disaster and a national embarrassment. In early 1993 He was given two choices: permanent retirement, or ECHO. He chose ECHO. ECHO basically meant career burial, and Ray only really chose the job because he didn’t want to waste all his years of training and education in some menial office job. Unfortunately, once he got to the office in LA, that’s all ECHO seemed to be. He was buried up to his head in bureaucracy and rarely got away from his desk. He would’ve drank to combat the boredom – only issue being that the overtime and paperwork left no time to do that. He itched to go out in the field, investigate, and do the ‘real’ work, as he called it. But a job was a job, and Rayleigh did this one as best as he could. Good things come to those who wait, though, and in February of 1993 Nolan Wright – Head honcho of ECHO and long-time director – slipped an economy-class ticket to the Silver Meridian train-cruise on his desk. Suddenly, doing paperwork all day seemed a little more palatable now. He put in his time until the cruise was set to leave, keeping a low-profile and trying his best to stay out of trouble.