The Veteran was one of the first Bazooka man of Sarge Green
“Thanks for saving me. I may be old, but as long as i have my bazooka those Tan are going to regret messing with me” – Veteran when saved by Sarge
Once back on the Plastic World, after the initial encounters with the Tan on the Real World during Army Men ll Events, Sarge attempts to contact HQ, but nobody responds to his call. Upon investigating the area, Sarge discovers a broken radio antenna that was preventing his broadcast from reaching headquarters, as well as this Green Veteran being held captive by the Tan. This Great World War Veteran that was subsequently rescued. The Veteran readily joins Sarge’s squad and points him in the direction of a shack with repair tools in it. Once Sarge retrieves it, he falls back to the antenna and repairs it. He then attempts to rebroadcast his message and receives a response; headquarters informs him that a train is stopping at the local station and they need him to board it. Sarge does so, and he is redeployed to a tank factory and given a new mission. Veteran followed Sarge from there on.
Behind the scenes:
Given the soldier’s speech style and specialization (and dialog line), Veteran Vern is likely a precursor to the idea for Riff, as was Scorch from the tank farm mission (both from Army Men 2). It’s no coincidence that Veteran’s speech style sounds a bit like the final idea behind Riff, a voice with a clear jazz influence.
In the audio file names, you can read “Vern” (0201VeteranVern.wav, 0202VeteranVern.wav), and extrapolating to Riff itself and the influences he is composed of, Vern could be short for Vernard, who could draw his influence from two great jazz figures (also African-American): Vernard Gray and Vernard Johnson. Perhaps a bit far-fetched… but if the idea was already in the air, the influence surely comes from those quarters. These relatively small and unimportant issues, which do not touch on the most important aspects of the plot and canon, were usually intervened by one of the 3DO employees involved, as references or easter eggs.
