American John Porter

John Armitage Porter was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. His father, Andrew Porter, is a construction project manager and former U.S. Army combat engineer. His mother, Elaine Porter, is a pharmacist. A couple of months before graduating from high school, Porter's girlfriend, Diane, became pregnant. A few days after Porter graduated, he and Diane were married. To financially support his new wife and soon to be born daughter, Alexandra, Porter enlisted in the United States Army shortly after the wedding. He decided to become an infantryman.

After completing basic combat training and then advanced individual training at Fort Benning, Porter went on to the U.S. Army Airborne School. Upon completing airborne training, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division as an airborne infantryman in the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Porter later attended and passed Ranger School, earning the Ranger Tab. A little while after that, he went through Ranger indoctrination training and was then assigned to the 1st Ranger Battalion. Porter eventually rose to the position of a fire team leader. Soon after, he attended the U.S. Army Air Assault School, earning the Air Assault Badge. A little while later, Porter applied to join Special Forces. After passing the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course, he went on to the Special Forces Qualification Course. Upon completing the entire training process, Porter joined the United States Army Special Forces. He served as a special forces weapons sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group.

As a Green Beret, Porter received numerous commendations and eventually attended the Special Forces Advanced Reconnaissance, Target Analysis, and Exploitation Techniques Course. Afterwards, he was assigned to an assault team in a Combatant Commanders In-extremis Force. Sometime later, Porter attended the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta Assessment and Selection Course. Upon its successful completion, he went through the Operator Training Course and was then assigned to an assault troop in Delta Force. Porter was later assigned to a reconnaissance and surveillance troop. As a Delta Force operator, he consistently showed himself to be an experienced professional with exceptional field discipline.

Porter left the Army after fourteen years of distinguished service at the rank of Sergeant First Class. He then moved to Washington, D.C. with his family and was eventually hired by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security as a security protective specialist. At some point, Porter's exemplary work in leading protective security details guarding U.S. State Department personnel caught the attention of a senior operations officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer named Hugh Collinson. After reviewing his military records and examining his experience in both counterterrorism direct action missions and intelligence gathering operations, Collinson believed Porter would be perfect for a newly-established and highly unconventional anti-terrorist unit within the CIA. In short order, he was offered a position in an elite paramilitary black ops organization called Section 20.

So top-secret that it officially doesn't exist, Section 20 is a high-tech tactical operations group that focuses on high-risk, top-priority targets. Directed to attack terrorist threats where they originate, it functions as a highly sophisticated mobile intelligence unit with the capability to move from country to country anywhere in the world, sometimes covertly, sometimes with the agreement of the local government. All of its work is unofficial and "off the books." That allows its small group of operatives to operate independent of the U.S. national security apparatus and therefore disregard various laws and international treaties. Commanded by Hugh Collinson, the missions tasked to Section 20 are deniable covert and clandestine operations that would be completely disavowed by the U.S. government if ever made public. They include targeted killings, false-flag actions, enforced disappearances, clandestine insertion and extraction of operatives, and providing secret military assistance to foreign governments in their counterterrorism efforts.

With his wife's full support, Porter accepted the offer and joined Section 20. In his capacity as a Section 20 operative, he engages in covert military direct action and special reconnaissance operations, as well as clandestine intelligence collection assignments that often involve unilateral espionage operations in which he assumes a false identity and goes deep undercover in order to identify targeted terrorists, track them to a specific location and capture or kill them as necessary. Officially, Porter remains employed by the United States Department of State as a DS Security Protective Specialist. In actuality, he is one of Section 20's lead field officers. A clear-thinking and reliable special operations veteran, Porter brings strategic clout to Section 20. As a premier CIA counterterrorism operative, he has helped save the United States from devastating terrorist attacks on numerous occasions.

Note

 * A British version of this character appeared in series 1 of the UK television series Strike Back.