Authors Note: This is part of a series and backstory for a character that I am planning on creating for XCOM 2.

/This is the documented interview with the lone survivor of the Outpost we found in Missouri. He seemed overly calm before the interview, as if still in shock over the events from the past few nights. It should be known that the assault on this outpost lasted for three days and two nights before XCOM operatives made it to the scene.

XCOM Recruiter David Gutierrez: "Tell me Mr. Ashford….. why should we bring you into the XCOM Program?"

John Ashford: "Twenty years….. It has been twenty years since the visitors claimed our planet as their own. I was only three years old when we lost the war. If you can even call it that. We had grown up on the stories about the XCOM Project, my father, an old pilot and Astronaut had seen them in person. He never really talked about it much until a few weeks back. My father always believed that there was simply no chance that we humans were here alone in the cosmos."

/At this point in time Mr. Ashford exhibited the first signs of emotion.

JA: "You know, back home, in New Town I mean…. we were a small community of about a hundred fifty or so, we knew each others names and no one was ever left out. We had baseball on Friday nights, barbeques on Saturday's and Sunday was a day held for God and family…. we tried our best to live normal lives, heh… well as normal as living the wastes can get."

/There was a bit of a pause in Mr. Ashfords answer. The Recruiter remained patient.

JA: "For the most part we only needed a couple guys on the walls watching for ADVENT, or even a visitor if they felt the need to explore. The abductions of other outposts and colonies weren't unheard of either. It seemed that they would aim for the larger communities, those in the hundreds and even thousands. The days were quiet, I enlisted in the Community Militia to keep watch over the life I learned to love."

/There was another pause in his answer, Mr. Ashford needed to compose himself a bit more.

JA: "Of course I was this dumb twenty year old kid, I got in trouble… I took things mostly for granted.. started skipping on all family events and told my father to blow off. I got hooked into the wrong couple of guys while in the militia. We would.. we would sneak off with a few of the girls to the barn and drink. Eventually this got me reprimanded as well as few other things, I fell off the horse so to say… in the end all I feel is a need to right my wrongs… it was my fault."

DG: "What exactly was your fault?"

/Mr. Ashford spent the next moment a bit choked up.

JA: "The fall of New Town.."

DG: "I see… so why exactly should we take you in? Why do you want to fight?"

JA: "I owe to them…. every last one of them."

DG: "What do you owe them? Why do you owe them?"

JA: "After your men arrived, I spent three days digging graves… it was so many that I began to lose count. It had to be at least… eighty… some of your men were kind enough to help me. Mostly I think it was because I refused to leave until it was done… eighty people died because of my mistake, the other sixty nine are missing. I am all that is left, I have to shoulder the burden of living life for every single one of them. I know that they would want me to fight. The visitors and ADVENT need to pay for every single loss of life. Big and small alike, they came to this planet and begun a war twenty years ago. We lost the first battle, but for as long as I live we will not lose the war. I made a few promises back in New Town, I intend to keep them…"

DG: "Everyone in XCOM has suffered great loss of some kind or another, what makes yours more important? Why should we discount anyone else's tragedies for yours? We are only able to hold and shelter so many people on Avenger after all."

JA: "... you don't… my tragedy is none the worse than anyone elses. Everyone deserves their shot and I am in no position to take that from another. I can tell you this though, despite whether you decide to take me in or not, I will take the fight to them. If I have to fight on my own, then so be it… I know that it is a suicide mission but I have at least one hundred and forty nine visitors to send off to their maker. I will not stop until I see that mission carried out."

DG: "I see… well we will be in touch later so you can debrief us on the events leading up to New Town's fall."

JA: "... very well."

/End interview one.