Raiden's History
Early life and career
Jack was born on a rainy day in Liberia. During his youth, in the turbulent period that was the First Liberian Civil War, Jack was adopted by Solidus Snake, who named him and became his godfather after he killed the former's parents. Jack was subsequently raised as a child soldier and later fought in the country's Civil War in 1989. He and other children were shown Hollywood action films daily for "image training," and were given food mixed with gunpowder containing toluene to make them more controllable.
Jack and the other members of the Small Boy Unit were forced to kill POWs and civilians. On one occasion, Jack was injected with an unknown substance during a physician's experiment. On another, Jack witnessed Solidus demonstrate to him that blades were a "noble weapon" compared to guns, by slitting another soldier's throat in front of him.
Under Solidus, Jack became a killing machine, known alternately as the "White Devil" and "Jack the Ripper" due to his incredibly high kill rate compared to other boys his age, as well as a reference to his being one of the few Caucasians born in Liberia. Armed with a gun at the age of six, he would later remember it as an AK rifle, as well as a knife, he proved to be a superior soldier, rising to become captain of the Small Boy Unit at ten. His skills with a bladed weapon, as well as his cruelty in dispatching enemies with them, was another reason for his "Ripper" nickname.
After the war ended, Solidus had Jack placed in a relief center.
The relief center was reluctant to put the latter into a foster family because they feared he would be too much trouble for the family.
Eventually, without Solidus' knowledge, he was later removed by a non-governmental organization and taken to the United States. Jack and other surviving members of the Small Boy Unit then underwent extensive amounts of counseling before becoming at least outwardly stable. There, Jack came into the hands of the Patriots, who implanted his cerebral cortex with a high concentration of nanomachines, in order to have him function as a back-up system for an optic-neuro AI. The Patriots chose him out of the other child soldiers in his unit because unlike the others, who would live up to their pasts and pay dearly for it, Jack did not accept his past and hated it. The same nanomachines were also capable of memory manipulation by connecting or stimulating synapses, primarily nerve sections in the dormant part of the brain. In addition, Jack was not listed under any of the United States databases (e.g. the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc.)
Jack would grow up to suppress the memories about his terrible childhood, burying the memories of his bloody past, though he still suffered from nightmares of his past nearly every night. Now living a life in the United States, Jack joined the military where his admirable skills were at first recognized by the U.S. Army's Task Force XXI. From there he participated in over three hundred VR simulations, including re-creations of the Shadow Moses Incident and the Tanker Incident.
He had eventually left the Force XXI group by January 20, 2007.
On April 30, 2007, Jack met Rosemary after transferring to Fort Hamilton in New York City and had an argument about King Kong. After they parted ways, they met again afterward, shocked that they worked in the same place. Eventually, Jack grew to love Rose deeply, but his harsh experiences had left him melancholic and emotionally distant, and he constantly shut her out of his problems. In large part because of his PTSD-induced nightmares, he also refused to sleep next to Rose out of fear of hurting her. Most times when they did get together, he either stayed awake all night or otherwise left Rose's place, and he wouldn't let her in his bedroom. This eventually culminated in Rose entering his room without his permission, which was devoid of any personal objects save for a bed and a desk. However, all of this drama was a ruse by the Patriots to gain more control over Jack's life, with Rosemary acting as a spy.
Sometime prior to the Big Shell Incident, Jack was recruited into the supposedly reformed FOXHOUND, a special forces unit that no longer officially existed.
One of his training sessions at FOXHOUND was at Fort Polk, within a mock Afghan village.
