Jorma Harkonen
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Jorma Oskaripoika Harkonen (1991-) is one of Uudestaan’s foremost figures. Counted as a hero of the Dominion Wars and officially the ninth person to hold the very prestigious rank of Marshal of Uudestaan, very few question his reasoning, his motives or his political leanings, trusting them to be as sound as his military leadership.
Contents
Background
Born in the small village of Jyyka, roughly thirty minutes outside the Uudesan capital, Åsa, to an optician father and teacher mother, he was the fourth of seven children (four boys and three girls). His upper middle-class, Loistava upbringing led Jorma to be fairly conservative, politically wise, and an Oikei Party card holder. His grandfather was staunchly against the 1981 Liberalist Revolution. His privileged upbringing also paid his way into University where he studied to follow his father into the medical profession. However, his time in Åsa nearly proved disastrous as he very nearly failed University completely. Even by the end of the first term his tutors were on the verge of letting him go, but after much soul-searching he switched to a subject he enjoyed (Humanities) and obtained a degree.
He married when he was 31 to a female teacher who was five years younger than he was. His wife, Elli, was teaching at the high school where Jorma had attended, and they met, slightly bizarrely, during a class reunion. Less than 13 months later they were married, and not soon after, they had their one and old child, Mika.
However, his marriage to Elli has been through some tough patches, arguably linked entirely to his military career, but the marriage has remained intact despite several periods where Elli and Jorma decided to spend time away from each other – more so than they were already, that is.
Military Career
Upon leaving University, aged 22, he felt no choice but to follow his oldest brother into the military as an officer. Harkonen showed a good balance of discipline and order, but high spirits as well, and appealed to both superiors and his own troops. Unlike his brother, Jorma was keen to progress in his career rather than stay with the troops, and within ten years of joining the army, he was already a Major.
When the Armed Forces in Uudestaan were reorganised to become the Uudestaan Defence Force in 2041, Harkonen was offered the role of Brigadier-General. Jorma took it, and demonstrated further his natural talents of strategy and planning. In the many trials and war games that the new UDF put itself through, it was Harkonen’s troops that 9/10 times convincingly won, even if the brief was they were just to serve as OPFOR for a greater force. It was here that Harkonen first showed off his believe in a slightly unorthodox approach of defeating an enemy by luring it deep into hostile territory, weakening it significantly before finally crushing it. He called it “entrapment”. It was a tactic that was used by notable and famous leaders throughout history, such as Erokas, Mandavin, Bukharin or Hakkinen, one of the earliest Marshals of Uudestaan. It was a tactic that played a large role in the Dominion Wars. Harkonen became the most talked about officer in Uudestaan, and was appointed General and effective Head of the Army by 2048, following the retirement of the then Head, General Eero Modas
The Dominion Wars and the Invasion of Uudestaan
By 2053, with the thought of war drifting through much of the region, Uudestaan was bracing itself for the idea of engaging in a full-scale war, something it had not done in hundreds of years.
When Yugopatomia declared war on The Holy Dominion, few thought that Uudestaan would not get involved. In preparation, the Uudesan Parliament granted Harkonen the rare and highly prominent role as Marshal of Uudestaan, to effectively run the entire armed forces. This made him only the ninth person to hold the role, in nearly four thousand years.
Despite being historically isolationist and wary of other nations, Uudestaan was firmly aligned to The Coalition, and President Kaarlo Ehkimoinen was eager to put some of the UDF into service in support of their Coalition allies. Harkonen was wary of the idea, as he believed that the UDF was not large enough to operate in any great role without leaving areas of Uudestaan exposed. But he agreed and allowed divisions, largely from the west of the country, to push forward alongside troops from MDKCorp into Weinersteinston as part of Operation Asgard, which Harkonen played a role in planning.
Unfortunately, just as the operation looked to be progressing well, news came that armies in the neighbouring country of the Obsidian Order were amassing for an invasion. The Obsidian Order was known to have an uneasy alliance with the Dominion, but action by them was not expected. Uudestaan desperately tried to make some sort of response to the build up, but within 36 hours of first signs of invasion, thousands of military units poured over a mostly undefended Uudesan border. Within a few days, further enemy units, part Obsidian Order, part Dominion, invaded the far northeast of the country. It was obvious that the southern attack was the most dangerous, as the south of the country was not as easily defendable as the north, and the force behind it was far greater.
Harkonen quickly made it clear that he did not believe that the UDF forces that remained in Uudestaan were enough to defeat the many Cardassian Orders flooding over the frontier, but was confident that local knowledge and a defensive mentality may mean something against them. He also followed his entrapment philosophy straight away, and pulled hundreds of UDF units away from the wet, flat border lands to the far side of the great Sergei River, a near unavoidable barrier that had to be crossed in order to progress into the rest of Uudestaan. The UDF “disappeared” in front of Cardassian advancement, but did so quite deliberately. While the Orders advanced, special units like the Rajavartiolaitos or local resistance forces strategically targeted Cardassian relief convoys and supply depots. The tactic worked. After falling back across the river, the UDF led the Cardassians blindly on beyond the river and into the mountains. In the background, Rajavartiolaitos and other Coalition forces blew up any remaining bridges on the Sergei, separating a large amount of Cardassian forces from the rest of their army. It was not without risk however, as the trapped enemy force still was a very fearsome fighting force, and could deal Uudestaan terrible losses and possible defeat before it starved to death.
As Cardassian attempts to bridge the Sergei floundered and the weather worsened, the trapped army tried a desperate attempt to brake through the mountains and link up on the far side. The UDF finally stood firm and did battle. The Battle of Kuljalla Pass marked the beginning of the end of the Cardassian presence in Uudestaan. Unable to fight in the manner they were accustomed to, the Cardassians slowly wound to a halt. It was a battle that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, Cardassian and Uudesan alike, but it broke the spirit of the Obsidian advance, and as the remnants of the trapped army fled back to the Sergei, veteran UDF and MDKCorp forces returning from Weinersteinston were able to rush into the country from the south and devastate them. In the north, the UDF fighting there were able to fight with renewed conviction, and they began to slowly push the invaders out of the country.
Harkonen’s Grand Plan still resulted in the deaths of millions of Uudesans, but if anyone blamed him, they weren’t very vocal. It was recognised that due to the ferocity and might of the invading army, they should have easily defeated the UDF. Harkonen’s brilliant strategy was not without loss, but perhaps saved the loss of the entire country, and some, perhaps dramatically, claim that it stopped an Obsidian plan for area domination before it could start.
Harkonen was lauded as a hero, and he has been promised the usually temporary role as Marshal of Uudestaan for life.
Post-War
One thing that Uudestaan prides itself on was its ability to stand against the Obsidian Order and defeat it. However, Harkonen was quick to add that outside assistance played a large role in Uudestaan’s survival, and pointed to their Coalition allies as saviours. He also pointed to Pastocia who also had to deal with an invasion from the Obsidian Order, and managed to repel it also. During the crisis in Ehkimoinen’s leadership that followed on from the war, Harkonen seemed to drift away from his Oikei principles and became a keen advocate for international cooperation and friendship, but did not go as far as publicly side with Ehkimoinen – he felt that he should not intervene except to keep order in where it had broken down.
Harkonen believed that Uudestaan should be much more open. He highly admired the spirit of the Coalition alliance, and has become almost an ambassador to other nations in the area. It was his experience in the Coalition, and the fears of a Neo-Urallian space threat, which led to Harkonen proposing the formation of The Cosmonautical Cooperation of the Continents of PEEL. Designed to capture the spirit of the Coalition as well as bind the region back together, Harkonen hopes the CCCP will be his lasting legacy, and a way of defending the hard-fought-for peace in the area.
Currently Harkonen is overseeing a further restructuring of the UDF back into a fully fledged professional fighting force.
