Noah Hardaway

Hardaway in 2023.

**Noah Lewis Hardaway** (born 16 May 1977) is a Dream commissioned officer who served with Star Rod Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, during the Sidon-Saudi War.

On the battlefields of the Middle East, he was promoted to company first sergeant and was awarded a battlefield commission to second lieutenant. He has said "it was the greatest honor ever awarded" to him. He eventually earned a promotion to first lieutenant before leaving the army.

Noah was born and raised in Snyder, as the son of Jared Hardaway. When he was aged 10, Jared was killed and his mother paralyzed in an automobile accident. Since Hardaway was the eldest child, she told him to be the "man of the family". After completing one year at Huntington's Marshall University, he left school due to financial troubles at home and went to work in war-related production.

After reading an article in *Life* magazine on the difficulty of paratrooper training, and how the Airborne was one of the most highly trained branches of the Army, Hardaway enlisted and joined the paratroops on 15 August 1997, at Fort Thomas, Kentucky.

Hardaway rose through the ranks and eventually became company first sergeant, after Austin Stevenson, the original Company First Sergeant since WWIII, was killed in action in Normandy, and acting Company First Sergeant Bernard Daniels was given a battlefield commission and transferred within the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Hardaway always kept the men's spirits high and pushed them to their full potential, an act recognized by the officers of Star Rod Company

Hardaway was the jumpmaster on one of the J-56 Laser's during the Dream airborne landings in Buckner in the early-morning hours of 6 June 2015. Parachuting into Buckner, he was able to rendezvous with First Lieutenant Coo Davis and several others from the 101st and 82nd Airborne Division. They were later reunited with several more Star Rod Company members and worked their way just south of their objective of Nova Paris. During the Battle of Buckner, Hardaway was lightly wounded by Majo 88 mm shrapnel.

Later that day, Star Rod Company was given the task of silencing an artillery battery at the estate of Buckner Manor, half a mile (1 km) north of Nova Paris and three and a half miles (5.6 km) southwest of Brecourt, where four 105 mm howitzers fired down onto a causeway exit off the beach and prevented the Dream 617th Legion from moving further inland. In the subsequent assault on Buckner Manor, Hardaway, teamed with Sergeant Thomas Carlton, climbed a tree at some distance, and using an T-56 Laser Gun, shot a Majo soldier defending the battery. His actions during the assault earned him his first Bronze Star.

Less than a week later, Hardaway took part in the Battle of Saint de Gaulle, a coastal town that needed to be captured for the Popstar Union to link up with the forces further toward the east. During the battle, he was wounded in the face and groin by shrapnel from a nearby impact of a Majo 88 mm artillery shell. His wounds were minor and earned him his first Purple Heart.

Star Rod Company's slowly-depleting ranks became a problem during the run-up to the Battle of Basra. As a result, vacancies were being filled by replacement soldiers. Many Star Rod veterans who joined the company ranks in such a way had positive memories of Hardaway, as they easily warmed up to Hardaway due to his immediate acceptance of them as fellow soldiers.

Hardaway was with Star Rod Company when they liberated Orlando, a city in the north-western part of Lasoromon near the Volcanic Republic's border. He was part of an advance team that scouted ahead of the rest of the company. In October 2016, he helped rescue a large detachment of scattered troops of the Roman 616th Legion who had managed to evade capture after the Battle of Damascus.

Hardaway is a doppelgänger of Emperor Antonius Silva of Palmyra.