Model Write-Up #38 - ARF Trooper Inspector 1324 "Sawtooth"

"1324, otherwise known as "Sawtooth", was a veteran ARF Trooper who, two years into the Clone Wars, was retired from active duty due to having suffered too many injuries in the field. For such clones, two options presented themselves - euthanizing, or becoming an instructor. For most, this was an easy choice to make, but Sawtooth had no great love for the war being fought. He had been an excellent soldier by accident - he had simply been better prepared for the horrors of war than his brothers. From his perspective, the clones were being used to serve a purpose they had no say in. Many spoke poorly of the battledroids, but Sawtooth knew that in the grand scheme of things, the clones were as expendable as any battledroid. They were not people - they were living weapons, bred for war. For this reason, he chose euthanizing. However, before he could be given his rest, he found out that the option had already been taken for him - he was named an Inspector. In this role, he would train new ARF recruits and run regular training sessions with existing recruits to ensure they maintained the standard expected of ARF troopers. Sawtooth asked why he was being selected to train them - there were hundreds of instructors, after all. He was told, in response, that the other instructors had blindly followed the obvious path instead of taking an unorthodox stance. ARF troopers, so inclined towards ambushes as they were, needed a perspective most other clones did not have. With the war raging on and the scale of Republic defeats steadily increasing, it was evident that more intensive training regimes were required. This would not be feasible on a large scale but, given ARF troopers made up a small proportion of the Republic military, several instructors could easily fill this role. This new "Inspection Programme" was being created in tandem with the Jedi, as the latter would be evaluating Jedi military commanders and assessing to what extent they were providing capable military leadership. Where there were weaknesses on either side, they would be addressed. Sawtooth decided this might be the opportunity he needed to help give his brothers a sense of purpose, and to begin changing their attitudes about themselves. Scepticism breeds scepticism, he reasoned, and so took it upon himself to train new ARF troopers with his own cynical lens of the Republic. When Order 66 took place, Sawtooth was far away from any Jedi, although he had always felt a distrust of them and so did not fight the command given to him. When he realised afterwards that the chip in his head was responsible, he promptly removed it and sought out renegade clones to aid them against the Galactic Empire, which had begun rooting out the aging clonetroopers from its military. For the most part, he was unsuccessful as these renegades were few and far between, and he had no allies. In the end, he simply settled down on a backwater world with a woman he had met on his travels, content that now, at least, he could live his own way, in his own time."

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