Marine
|
|
File Name: Ettiene
R. LaFitte
|
Birthplace: Fer-de-lance,
LA |
Rank: Sergeant
Major |
Primary Military
Specialty: Recondo
|
Secondary Military Specialty: Jungle Warfare Training
Instructor
|
Status: Active
|
First Appearance:
G.I.
JOE #11 (May 1983)
|
"What? You wanna
live forever?"
—
Gung-Ho
|
Gung-Ho was born on the
bayou
to a big cajun clan. His long list of siblings included his young
sister
who was a child model. Gung-Ho was a tough kid and later became known
as
a fierce brawler and knife-fighter in New Orleans. He joined the
Marines
at age 18, and graduated top-of-class from Parris Island. He went
through
additional training in Recondo School, Airborne School and Marine
Ordinance
School.
When the Army's G.I. Joe
team
was expanded to include members from other branches of the armed
forces,
Gung-Ho was one of the first new additions. On his first mission he was
sent to Alaska to help a team of Joes prevent Cobra
from poisoning the
Alaskan oil pipeline. His new teammates didn't know what to make of
this
new Joe who went around bare-chested in the frozen wilderness and spoke
with an on-again, off-again cajun accent. He soon gained their respect
after proving himself a tough, brave (and just a bit crazy) fighter,
charging
into a group of Cobra troops and single-handedly besting them. Gung-Ho
quickly became one of the team's most prominent members. He traveled to
the small nation of Sierra Gordo, where he and a team of Joes ran afoul
of
a team of Cobras led by Dr. Venom and the Baroness.
The Joes were
nearly
killed when the Baroness bombed the boat they were traveling in, and
then
destroyed an island bunker. It was believed the blast killed Snake-Eyes
and the Joes went on without him. Gung-Ho snuck his way into a local
radio
station after hitching a ride in the back of a pig-herder's truck. He
managed
to persuade the station owner to let him radio Joe HQ for help. The
team
was soon extracted after a brief firefight.
Gung-Ho participated in
many
more missions, including fending off an attack on Washington, DC, and
defending
the Pit against a Cobra army. Gung-Ho became
known for his great
strength
after, among other things, tearing the door off a sportscar (a "Cobra",
of course) and pounding a support beam into place with his bare fists
to
stop a ceiling from collapsing. He was later injured by the Cobra agent
Storm Shadow, when the ninja helped Cobra Commander escape from atop a
mountain plateau where he was being held prisoner. As everyone
expected,
Gung-Ho recovered quickly and was back on duty. Later, he and several
Joes
fought a group of undercover Crimson Guardsmen
at the Arbco Brothers
Circus
in Staten Island.
Gung-Ho again returned to
Sierra Gordo on a mission
to
rescue American scientist Dr. Adele Burkhart. Teaming with Recondo and
a group of native Tucaro tribesman, the mission succeeded after
a firefight
in the jungle. Immediately after the mission, the team traveled to the
Gulf of Mexico where they joined a larger group of Joes in attempting
to
force Cobra off a newly-created island. The Joes fought a fierce
battle,
but were stopped short of victory when Cobra Island gained sovereignty
thanks to Cobra's ambassadors. When Zartan
infiltrated the Pit, the
Joes
had difficulty finding the master of disguise, who could change his
appearance
in seconds. During the search, Gung-Ho encountered Zartan in the guise
of Duke. Gung-Ho realized he wasn't the real Duke when referred to him
as "soldier". After chasing Zartan through the Pit's ventilation ducts,
Gung-Ho fought the Cobra agent, who then
assumed Gung-Ho's appearance
to confuse the other Joes. Sergeant Slaughter punched out Zartan
without
knowing for certain which Gung-Ho was which. Both Gung-Ho and the Sarge
were lucky Slaughter correctly chose Zartan to hit. Soon after Zartan's
capture, the Joe team invaded the Cobra-controlled town of Springfield.
Gung-Ho was part of the security team during the massive operation.
Gung-Ho was one of the
first
Joes on Cobra Island during the Cobra Island civil war. He was part of
the recon team that took over the control tower at Cobra's airfield.
This
allowed a Joe landing force to arrive, starting a major campaign in
which
nearly the entire G.I. Joe team fought. When the operation failed,
corrupt
officers at the Pentagon charge covered up their involvement and
claimed
Generals Hawk and Hollingsworth acted without
authorization. Gung-Ho
and
most of the team was placed under arrest, but were freed when the
remaining
members of the team freed Hawk and exposed the corrupt Generals. For
the
next several years, Gung-Ho served the Joes and remained one of their
most
valued members. When Cobra Commander attacked Joe headquarters in Utah,
Gung-Ho was on the front line, fighting off waves of Battle Android
Troopers
with many other Joes. He sustained minor injuries in the battle, but
Cobra's
invasion was a failure. In his years on
the team Gung-Ho was one of the Joes' fiercest
fighters,
but he retained a good sense of humor and was always a loyal friend to
his teammates. Gung-Ho remained on the Joe team until it was disbanded
in 1994.
Shortly after the Joe team was shut
down, Gung-Ho joined a
small
group of Joes for one last mission to deliver an important piece of
equipment
to a government installation. Chased across the country, they lost the
device and had to track it down at Cobra's castle in Trans-Carpathia.
In
2001, the G.I. Joe Team was reinstated by the government in reponse to
Cobra's return to the United States. Duke
brought many of the older
Joes
to help train and lead a batch of new recruits and Gung-Ho is now now
one
of the team's field commanders. In one of the new team's first
missions,
Gung-Ho lead a group of Joes through the swamps surrounding the
Dreadnok
compound in the Florida Everglades during their fight against Cobra's
nano-mite
threat. He later headed into the Czech Republic to rescue Flint and the
Baroness from Russian gangsters, fighting alongside Destro's Iron
Grenadiers.
He was one of the many Joes involved in an invasion of Cobra Island to
battle the forces of a revived Serpentor.
Some time later,
Gung-Ho
was part of a team fighting 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 in it, if
not disband it altogether. Eventually, the team's roster was cut down
to
only a dozen Joes including Gung-Ho. That small team defended the new
Pit against Cobra's attack, but Gung-Ho and most of those Joes were
quickly 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. Gung-Ho,
like most former Joes, was made a reserve member of the new team.
Gung-Ho was called back to the team to assist Jinx in infiltrating the
Tokyo headquarters of Hayatu Toba -- a Japanese businessman who was
secretly building an Army to topple his country's government. Though
the mission called for stealth
and subterfuge, the only Joes available to assist Jinx were Clutch,
Rock & Roll,
Gung-Ho and Wild Bill
-- none of whom are noted for their stealth or
subtlety. Instead, they all posed
as obnoxious businessmen meeting with Toba and started to fight amongst
themselves in his office to distract security. They were soon captured
and learned that Toba's group was involved with Destro's forces,
represented by Armada. When Toba refused to
follow her orders, she killed him and started the coup without him. As
the rebel forces rolled through the streets of Tokyo, many of the
soldiers turned on each other. Budo had worked to subvert many of them
away from Toba's control, and they and the Joes put a stop to the
attempted coup. Gung-Ho and his teammates decided to spend some extra
time in Tokyo after the mission, no doubt getting into trouble on their
own.
Artwork: G.I. JOE #126
(interior
- dossier); G.I. JOE #74 (interior) by Ron Wagner and Randy Emberlin;
G.I.
JOE: Special Missions: Tokyo (cover) by Tim Seeley, Cliff Rathburn and
Brian Buccelato.
Appearances:
- G.I. JOE: #11-14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22-25,
33, 37-42, 46, 48-50, 52, 53, 62-64, 72-77, 126 (dossier), 130, 131, 155
- G.I. JOE Special Missions: #27
- G.I. JOE Yearbook: #2
- G.I. JOE vol 2: #1-4, 6, 10, 15, 17-19, 23,
26,
28, 32, 37
- G.I. JOE: Front Line: #1-4
- G.I. JOE: Battle Files: #1
- G.I. JOE: Special Missions Tokyo
(compiled with help from Bryon Hake)
|
Action
figure/filecard links at YoJoe.com :
|
|
|