1. Military Personnel
Vato was a career military man. His father had been military before him and his great uncle and now he was and so was one of his nephews. There was always a son or cousin in every generation that went the military route and always through the enlisted ranks. The ones who weren't killed in battle, or forced to leave the military because of injuries, often made it into the officer ranks, eventually. Women in the military had started to become more common, so he wouldn't be surprised if one of his nieces or younger cousins ended up there as well.
No one in Heymans' family had ever joined the military. It had caused a bit of a stir when he'd applied to the Academy. He was an only child and his relatives on both sides always became doctors and engineers and professors, the girls as well as the boys. Not only was the military somewhat uncouth, it also meant his education would stop after the Academy, which meant he would get only an undergraduate degree.
Kain dropped out of school when his Dad died and went to work as a messenger for the Grand Hotel in Marco, north of Fotset, when he was ten. Between the money he brought in and charity from their church and help from aunts and uncles, they got by. Kain had a knack for technology, and once, when the Hotel telephone switchboard went down, he'd been able to read the diagrams and fix it. After that, the owner let him spend time after work tinkering with the switchboard and the radio. Finally, when he turned 17, he was old enough to enlist. That doubled his salary, so their family could finally go off charity. Because he tested so high on the technology tests when he enlisted, they assigned him to a tech squad under Warrant Officer Michaels.