From an early age, Dusty loved the desert, considering it "clean, pure and unforgiving", unlike his home town, Las Vegas, which is always willing to give you a second chance. While working as a refrigerator and air conditioner repairman, he studied desert ecology nights. He eventually enlisted in the Army and was quickly assigned to the G.I. Joe team. Dusty's friendly and easy-going nature makes him friends easily, but out in the field, fighting his enemy, Dusty is extremely tough and dangerous.

    In one of his earliest missions with the Joe team, Dusty and the Joes' computer expert, Mainframe, were sent into the Middle East to investigate the possibility that a Cobra Terror-Drome was built in the area. After helping plan an ambush for the group of rebels fighting against the oppression of Colonel Sharif, the two Joes were assigned a very young guide named Rashid. The showed nothing but disrespect toward Mainframe, who he thought was nothing but a computer expert. Dusty knew that Mainframe had been a soldier for years before learning about computers, and scolded Rashid for his attitude toward the veteran. During their trek across the desert at night, Dusty single-handedly fought four bandits and won, returning back to camp with their rifles.

    Dusty later returned to the Middle East, this time traveling to the nation of Trucial Abysmia. He and Outback were leading what was supposed to be a simple operation to blow up a hidden weapons cache in the desert. The mission was to serve as a training mission for two newly-recruited Joes, Lightfoot and Mangler. To their surprise, the Joes found themselves under attack by members of  the Trucial Abysmian army. The four Joes were captured, and the unit's overzealous political officer Aman tortured Lightfoot until he revealed the Joes' plans and the location of the weapons cache. Mangler angered Dusty by calling Lightfoot a coward and yelling at him for not being tough enough to withstand the torture. Even while handcuffed, Dusty silenced the hot-headed Joe with a swift kick. Most of the army unit left to find the weapons, with the unit's commander, Captain Yusif staying behind to execute the Joes. Yusif had tried to stop Aman's brutality and now let the Joes free, giving them a chance to find their way to a friendly port. The Joes decided to head for the cache anyway, and traveled across the desert with no vehicle and little food. Dusty's knowledge of desert survival made certain the Joes reached their goal. The Joes completed their mission, though Mangler was killed insuring his teammates' escape.

    A short time later, Dusty was at the Pit when Cobra's Star Viper infiltrated the Joes' headquarters in Utah and escaped with a top secret electronic "black box". The incident eventually led the Joes into the Cobra Island civil war. Dusty was one of the few Joes who were not part of the operation. When the members of the team were unrightfully taken into custody, he and several other Joes went underground. Dusty was one of the Joes who helped organize a mission to rescue Hawk and General Hollingsworth when they were arrested for acting without orders and entering the civil war. During the rescue, Hawk and Hollingsworth were cleared of all charges and the corrupt generals responsible were exposed. Dusty later saw to the security of the desert surrounding the Pit in Utah. He and a groups of Joes fought Cobra vehicles transmitting signals inside the Pit to previously brain-washed Joes, Clutch and Rock & Roll. The transmissions "activated" the Joes' programming, telling them to attack their teammates. Clutch and Rock & Roll overcame the brain-washing and Dusty and the Joes out in the desert beat the Cobra invaders.

    The Battle of Benzheen was the Joes' biggest operation yet. Nearly the entire team -- including Dusty -- participated in a war against Cobra on the side of the Middle Eastern nation's Emir. In a battle in the streets of Benzheen's capital, Dusty watched in horror as his close friend Sneak Peek was gunned down by Cobra troops while saving a child who had been pushed into the line of fire by a Cobra Viper. Dusty remembered promising Sneak Peek's mother that if anything ever happened to her son, he would bring him home. Despite his promise, Stalker ordered Dusty to stay under cover and not risk anymore lives to retrieve the obviously dead Joe. When the time came to retreat, Dusty disobeyed Stalker's orders and hefted Sneak Peek's body over his shoulder before following the retreating Joes. He managed to make it back to base without being slowed down by his friend's body. Stalker never reported Dusty's actions. Before the war had ended several more Joes had died. Some time after the Battle of Benzheen, Dusty was one of a group of Joes that defended Destro's Trans-Carpathian castle from a Cobra assault. Afterwards, Hawk and Lady Jaye were stuck in the midst of Borovia's civil war while trying to find a way to get the Joes' out of Eastern Europe and back home. The rest of the group -- including Dusty -- learned that their teammates were in trouble and illegally entered Borovia's capital to rescue them.

    Dusty remained on the Joe team until it was shut down in 1994, and continued his military service. In 2001, he became a member of the newly reinstated G.I. Joe team. Among his usual duties, Dusty spends time running the new Joe recruits through target practice. Among other missions, Dusty joined in the battle against the forces of a revived Serpentor on Cobra Island, and later fought Cobra forces in Badhikstan. Some time after the mission into Badhikstan, members of the Joe team fought Cobra forces that were drawn into an attack on a train guarded by the Joes, believing that Destro was being held prisoner onboard. At the battle's end, Hawk was shot in the back by Cobra Commander and paralyzed. In Hawk's absence, the Jugglers began to take control of the team to reign it in, if not disband it altogether. Eventually, the team's roster was cut down to only a dozen Joes, and Dusty was one of many reassigned to other units. After the remaining Joes stopped a plot by Cobra to unleash the weapon known as the Tempest, and defeated a new threat, the Red Shadows, the military again disbanded the team. One year later, the Joe team was reformed with a smaller roster of active members. Dusty, like most former Joes, is a reserve member of the new team. When called back to duty during the global conflict known as World War III, Dusty fought in Iraq and Iran.

Dusty was named for Hasbro artist and G.I. Joe designer, Ron Rudat. The letters in his last name were simply reversed. In the Sunbow G.I. Joe cartoon, Dusty's last name actually is "Rudat".