Jackson (Camp Guardian)

Jackson was an New California Republic Army soldier stationed at Camp Guardian in October, 2281.

Background
After Jackson's last squad was killed by a Legion slaver squad in the south he was reassigned. Under the command of Sergeant Banner, he and eleven others were sent to establish Camp Guardian. By day three of their mission, the soldiers reached the base of the mountain and began to efficiently clear the ancient and long-neglected hiking trails. This was an effort made more difficult due to past landslides, which buried the trails so thoroughly that finding their own paths was a daunting task. By the fifth day, they managed to restore the trails to the first bridge. Unable to continue past this obstacle, they had to dismantle several shacks for materials to rebuild its crossing. It was that night that Jackson first heard mysterious howling, and he reported the incident to the Sergeant. However, Banner thought that it was only the wind.

After a week of clearing the paths, Kale and Banner were the first of the personnel to make it to the summit. The paths were mostly clear, and the camp had been established - for amusement, the soldiers altered the summit's pre-War sign. ) However, Jackson continued to hear strange noises. The three nights of reporting these incidents led Banner to believe them to be symptoms of PTSD, deciding to keep Jackson away from the munitions.

After some time clearing the last of the pre-War hiking paths, using the last remaining pre-War fencing as barriers for the most dangerous cliffs, the soldiers discovered some caves that the survey team missed. At the same time, the camp began to suffer from supply problems. A week after their official request for a radio from Camp McCarran, they still had received nothing. Seeking to acquire a way to contact their superiors, they sent a runner to Ranger Station Bravo (an hour-long journey at full sprint) to request any kind of radio equipment they could spare, even if it was a handheld. Sergeant Banner bemoaned his superiors as fools for expecting them to be able to contact them without radio equipment, comparing their command's expectations to the use of carrier pigeons and later lamenting that it was probably another politician's son.

The Rangers at Bravo gave the soldiers a handheld radio so they could use their equipment as a relay to Camp McCarran. Private Halford was put in charge of the handheld, as well as making their daily reports to Camp McCarran. With the handheld working well enough, they finished work on building steps up the steeper sections of the path so they could move the rest of their equipment to the top of Guardian Peak. Around the same time, Jackson came screaming into the tent, swearing up and down that he saw shadows moving in the water. Sergeant Banner sent half of the men in teams of two to search the area again. They came up empty handed, leading the writer of the camp logs to think that Jackson was unstable and needing counseling. However, they put off the official request to have him replaced for when they got their non-handheld radio from McCarran. When they finally received their radio, the Sergeant had it set up on the peak for overwatch duty.

Eventually, even Sergeant Banner started to hear the same noises as Jackson. He requested an additional survey from McCarran, but they blew it off as nerves. He knew that fish did not make that much noise, so he sent half of the squad down to the shore with lamps, but they could not see anything, nor could they find any other cave openings. He wished that they had some Cateye so they could see at night. Eventually, Collins came across a cave entrance right behind their tent, something the survey team should have caught if they had done a thorough job. With no knowledge of what was inside the caverns, nor enough manpower to deal with any serious pests, Sergeant Banner sent Frakes and Collins to scout out the caves the next day, planning to collapse the cave with explosives if he had to. In the meantime, he planned on having some choice words for Burke the next time he saw him, as it wasn't the fist time that Burke chose to skip over details while surveying an area. That night, however, would be the end of the camp.

The lakelurks attacked Camp Guardian in the night, while some were sleeping in their tents. In the ensuing struggle, the camp was torn apart, and its logs scattered. The sole survivor of the attack was Private Halford. As the unknown beasts dragged all his servicemen away, he managed to record a distress signal over the radio while trying to reach ranger station Bravo.

Appearances
Jackson is mentioned only in Fallout: New Vegas.