Glenn

 

Childhood
After the end of World War II, Seamus and Siobhan MacBaird returned to Dublin, Ireland from London to have their children. Seamus was stationed in London for part of the Blitz, and Siobhan lived with some family in Northern Ireland. The day after Seamus and Siobhan returned to Dublin, they married, and the next year they had identical twin boys -- Glenn Fergus Desmond Cillian and Ciaran Martin Quinn Christopher.

 The kids grew up in Dublin, attending public school and going to Irish Church (Protestant/Anglican) with their cousins. When they were 10, they ran away to "join a circus" but they were discovered sleeping under their neighbor's porch later that night. Two years later, they were caught tossing water balloons at the reverand's wife and children at the park and they were severely punished. At 15, they both were caught kissing the same girl at school and were sent home. They never really did anything very terrible or shameful, though their mother still comments about the water balloons.

Siobhan MacBaird was trained as a surgeon during the war, and she became quite famous for her skill. When the boys were 12 years old, she was hired by a hospital in Los Angelos, which caused quite a commotion in the states due to her gender. It was still uncommon in those days for a woman to be a surgeon, though it was not unprecedented. The family lived in the states for six years, during which time the boys started to grow apart.

Ciaran became rebellious and ran with the wrong sort of crowd, as Siobhan would say. He started to heavily indulge in drugs and was arrested for attempted robbery on the day that Glenn enrolled in college at UC Berkeley.

Seamus and Siobhan moved back to Ireland when the boys were 22 years old. Glenn's dad, Seamus MacBaird, was a WWII soldier (as so many parents of Vietnam vets were). Ireland was actually neutral during WWII, but Irishmen were allowed to join the British RAF, so he did. He met Siobhan, Glenn's mom, who was a nurse in Dublin before the war. Fighting for the British, his dad saw a lot of combat. His mom ended up joining the military as a nurse. Seamus was an officer (Air Commodore) in the Royal Airforce during WWII, promoted entirely during wartime due to bravery. Then he got shot down and captured by Germans in 1941. He remained a POW for 3 years, then he was liberated by Americans and sent home to Ireland where he married Siobhan right away. This is why Glenn has a high opinion of Americans and why he fought to gain citizenship so he could fight in Vietnam. And now he also has the POW experience in common with his dad, too, which is an interesting dynamic.

Ireland was neutral during WWII as I said before, so this meant that Irish POWs were put in a specific set of camps during the war, because the Axis didn't want to upset Ireland and sway them to join Britain. In 1939, the IRA declared war on Britain and was trying to make a deal with Germany that would let them attack England with German support.

So, Irish POWs were treated in an interesting way. Most of the Irish troops were concentrated in one place so the IRA could have contact with them and essentially brainwash them. The leader of the IRA actually visited one of the camps with the permission of the Germans at one point. As a result, many of the Irish at these camps would become key members of the IRA for decades. If this is what happened with Glenn's dad, that would explain why Glenn's no longer in Ireland but his folks are -- I don't want Glenn to be similar to Justify in terms of religion, so I'd say that Glenn's folks sent him and his brother to the states to protect them from the IRA madness that was taking over the nation at the time.