Template:MemoryZeta:Featured Article/December 2009

Gunnery Sergeant Don Jameson is the Hazard Team Leader aboard the Galaxy-class USS Saturn.

Jameson's parents are European expatriates who met in Africa while working in the Luangwa animal reserve at the southern tip of Africa's Great Rift Valley. Jameson was born in Lusaka and was involved in the operations of the reserve from a very early age. He became something of a mascot for the park rangers, guides and scientists who lived and worked in the reserve and they taught him skills such as wilderness survival, tracking, orienteering, animal husbandry, riding & camouflage. Even on the reserves, there is still sometimes a need to hunt animals and so he also learned to use weapons. By his teens, he was an accomplished guide in his own right, sometimes leading parties of tourists to see animals in their natural habitats.

At 12, he was moved from a state run school to a private school in Lusaka. The school operated a cadet cadre that all pupils had to join from the age of 13. This gave him an introduction to the military and with his existing skills, he took to the fieldcraft training with relish. Academically, he was slightly ahead of the average for his peer group except in languages where he was below average.Moving on to university at 18, he studied business with the intention of starting his own guide operation. He graduated with a upper second and was employed by a tour company in the Kafue animal reserve for whom he worked for four years. During this time, he earned a reputation for being lucky. Almost invariably his tour parties would come back having seen rare animals that other guides could not locate. There were also instances such as the occasion where he made his tour party walk back to their camp rather than use the transport provided. This proved fortuitous as the vehicle was involved in a fatal crash on its way back.However, he has not always been lucky. Once, while out riding in the reserve, his horse was startled and he was thrown to the ground. He sustained serious injuries to his back that have left him with several large scars. He has now fully recovered from that accident.After three years of working in Kafue, he realised that the guide business was saturated and that there would be no opportunities for him to build his own operation. One night, while camped out in the bush, he looked up at the stars and decided that his future was off planet. There isn't much call for a outdoorsman on a starship, but in the Marines he could make his way as a scout. So the young Jameson enlisted with Starfleet and headed for the stars.

At 25, he was unusually old for a Starfleet recruit but his age and experience has proved to be a useful balance to the youthful enthusiasm of his classmates and he became something of a mentor to the group, often assuming a leadership role during exercises.He was then transferred to the 6th Fleet Academy for the final stages of his training.