KyleAddington

• Retired Military - After a decorated career with the Air Cavalry Brigade in the 1st Cavalry Division of the United States Army, Kyle has retired to come home. He loves his vets.

• Helicopter Pilot - Kyle leveraged his retirement to finance a helicopter. He loves to be in the air, and he and his chopper have contracts all over Gray Harbor, from the hospital to the police and search and rescue. Need to get up there? Talk to Kyle!

• Drinking - Nobody drinks like a soldier! If 'boot and rally' means anything to you, you would enjoy a night of drinking with Kyle.

• Addington - Yes, Kyle is one of Those People. He's been away from Gray Harbor most of his life, so while he hasn't had a chance to piss the family matriarch off, he hasn't necessarily ingratiated himself either.

• Local Politics - He doesn't occupy any office or position in the official governmental structure of Gray Harbor, but since returning home, he's made a point of attending anything open to the public that happens at City Hall. His political views lean right, but he's shown an ability to be more open-minded than many of his party peers.

The oldest child of Renee and Jeremiah Addington, from an early age Kyle was different from his cousins and the rest of the family in some key ways. Most importantly, he really didn't give a damn about the money; his mother instilled in him a drive to make his own way and stand on his own feet.

Strange things sometimes happened around Kyle as a young kid. Nothing major, but sometimes things would move, or people would get hurt. Nothing very serious, and almost always in connection with a flare of temper, for young Kyle was a hothead. It made it hard for him to make friends, shaped the frame for a young man who was solemn and serious, driven. It propelled him along the path to become an officer in the United States Army, and even if a little Addington money here and there might have helped to pay for the fancy private schools that led to his being accepted into West Point, well, he did his part by earning his way forward with his athleticism and serious academic attitude. Discipline and willpower, he finds, can almost always be substituted for brain power. Being away from Gray Harbor seemed to calm him down, or at least when he did get wound up it wouldn't lead to anything more unusual than some holes in the drywall and a busted fist.

Graduating from West Point with a degree in political science in the year 1999, Kyle accepted a commission as an officer with the 1st Cavalry Division, Combat Aviation Brigade. That put him in the pilot seat of an attack chopper just in time for the Black Horse to rain hellfire and damnation down on the enemies of freedom in the opening salvos of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the rest is history, as they say. A couple of decades later and with an impressive number of medals weighing down the breast pocket of his dress uniform, Kyle retired early as a Major when it was offered to him and returned home to Gray Harbor.

Once he hit the ground, so to speak, Kyle leveraged his own retirement and combat pay to finance his privately owned helicopter. He loves being up in the sky more than anything, even if he does miss the machine guns and missiles his old bird had, and contracts with damn near every service or agency in Gray Harbor with any conceivable reason to charter a chopper and pilot keep him busy. That and lurking around City Hall, where some people believe he's building the momentum and following to campaign for some public office in the city. Generally he's accounted as a friendly, personable kind of guy, always ready with a smile and a handshake, and very down to earth for an Addington. But some folks have stories about his wild temper that usually involve too much booze, stories they tell very very quietly.

A rock of a man with broad shoulders and a brawny physique, Kyle stands over six feet tall. His sandy blonde hair and beard are flecked with spots of gray and white, kept short and neat in the military style. Blue eyes the color of cold lake water peer out at the world, weighing and calculating. His mode of dress is typically unpretentious, and he favors simple blue-collar outfits often mixed with Army uniform attire. He's prone to wearing a sidearm in a holster on his hip, rarely going anywhere without it.