Dane Stackwell - Team Leader

Recognized Military Experience: United States Navy
Rating and Rank: O-4, Lieutenant Commander
SKUL Serial Number: DS-03378-SO
Platoon: Whiskey
Team: Saber
Call Sign: Boss

Standing around six feet tall with a linebacker’s physique and wavy blond hair highlighting a set of piercing, glacial blue eyes, Lieutenant Commander Dane Stackwell cut an intimidating shadow.  He had two visible tattoos that only added to his menacing appearance.  The older tattoo was on his right forearm.  It depicted a fire-breathing dragon with wings spread threateningly and a forked tail curved in a figure eight.  The dragon was perched atop a Templar’s cross and was the unrecognized symbol of an unrecognized counterterrorist unit.  On the face of that cross was inscribed Revelation 22:12-13.  That particular verse begins with And, behold, I come quickly which is also the accepted, yet equally unrecognized, motto of that aforementioned CT unit.  The second, inked into his left forearm, carried much more ominous connotations for the whole of humanity. 

The product of the sleepy Mississippi town of Prentiss, Dane was almost immediately recognized as a natural born leader and seen as someone who would go very far in life.  As a child, his interests included baseball and football along with G.I. Joe cartoons and anything that had to do with Star Wars and its Jedi Knights.  The latter two making the first gentle nudges toward a military life.  A consummate dreamer with an adventuresome spirit, Dane felt the tug of military life at a very early age.  Every Friday afternoon he would get on his bike and make the five mile ride to the local library to check out books concerning the Vietnam War.  Once those books had been exhausted, he begged his parents to start buying related books on their frequent trips to Hattiesburg, the nearest town with a bookstore.  The bargaining was intense, but in the end, they relented as long as Dane agreed to take on more responsibilities around the house.  After one of these trips in the early nineties Dane’s mom dropped the newest book on his night stand.  That book, Men in Green Faces, sealed his fate.

He would be a Navy SEAL or die trying.

From that point forward, everything he did, he did with that goal in mind, but he was not finished dreaming.  Not only would he become a SEAL, he would do so as an officer.  The only addendum to those plans came some years later when he read about the secretive unit then called SEAL Team Six.  And so, he continued to dream and set lofty goals.  He would not only become a SEAL; he would be an officer.  And, not only would he be an officer, but he was bound and determined to become an officer within the most elite unit in the world – one filled with others of his ilk.

And he would lead them.

Marrying his high school sweetheart while attending the University of Mississippi on a Naval ROTC scholarship, he poured himself into accomplishing his goals.  He made the right contacts and attended all the right summertime activities.  Basically, he strategically moved all the pieces into place for a slot in BUD/S, the most brutal training program on the planet, immediately after graduation and commission.

To say Dane breezed through BUD/S would be a gross overstatement, but once it had shaken out, the young Ensign found himself standing with but a few of those who had started in his class.  At some point during the selection process Abbey became pregnant and gave him a beautiful baby boy – Henry – just before his graduation ceremony.  The last thing Dane wanted to do was leave her with their newborn, but the Navy was not asking for permission when sending him to STT or SEAL Tactical Training.

Then 9-11 happened and Dane spent the better part of four years deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan proving his mettle as both a war-fighter and a leader of men.  Strangely, an invitation to screen for Green Team would never come.  Green Team was the training wing for DEVGRU – SEAL Team Six’s new designation.  Instead, he was approached by several high-ranking military officials and charged with putting together an off-the-grid, counter-terrorist organization involving combat experienced operators from all branches of the armed forces.

The unit operated under an ironclad shield of anonymity while on forbidden soil…that of the United States. 

 

So-called Section 8, Dane and his men – and women – hunted down terrorists operating within our borders, taking them out before they could wreak their havoc.  This fact not only violated the Posse Comitatus Act but obliterated it.

While leading members of Section 8 on a personnel recovery of three DEA agents taken hostage by a Mexican Cartel, Dane had his first taste of fighting werewolves - if you can really call it fighting.  It was really more like dying as nearly every operator on the team was killed in brutal fashion.

Six months later, having been medically discharged from the Navy, Dane was recruited by SKUL.  Only a precious few upper echelon military personnel along with POTUS even knew SKUL existed.

And why did SKUL exist?

To stand between humankind and the werewolves that would slaughter them.