Julio Vega
First Sergeant Julio "Oso" Vega is a Rainbow operative that appears in several Tom Clancy novels.
Biography
Julio Vega was a member of the US Army Rangers before he joined Delta Force and completed a tour at Fort Bragg.
Clear and Present Danger
In 1988, he was put on a small team to undertake a secret anti-drug operation in Colombia under the direction of the CIA. It was during this mission that he met and became friends with one of his squadmates, Domingo Chavez.
Debt of Honor
In 1995, Vega was the Senior non-commissioned officer in the squad of Rangers assigned to Japan.
Rainbow Six
In 1999, Vega was recruited into the newly formed Rainbow counter-terrorism unit as a machine gunner on Team 2. A few weeks after arriving at the organization's headquarters at Hereford Base, England, Domingo Chavez arrived to start his position as leader of Team 2. Upon entering Team 2's facility, Chavez was surprised to see Vega as one of his new subordinates. Happy to see Chavez, Vega gave his new boss a tour if the facility and introduced him to the other members of Team 2. Afterwards, Vega and then rest of Team 2 started conducting various training exercises to prepare for their eventual first mission.
Bern, Switzerland
Three weeks later, a hostage situation erupted at a commercial bank in Bern, Switzerland after what appeared to be a robbery gone wrong. Following the execution of a hostage, the official order came down for Rainbow to handle the situation. Upon touching down at the airport, Team 2 was met by Marius Roebling who gave them a brief overview of the situation. Afterward, Team 2 geared up and disguised themselves as Swiss Police and traveled to the situation. After Eddie Price questioned Hans Richter, Ernst Model and Erwin Guttenach were identified as two of the terrorists inside the bank.
A short time after Tim Noonan planted surveillance cameras around the outside of the bank, they revealed revealed that the building could only be entered through the front and rear doors. Chavez formulated a plan that called for Scotty McTyler and Paddy Connolly to breach from the rear. A second later, Chavez and Price would breach the front left door while Louis Loiselle and George Tomlinson would breach the front right door as the terrorists were facing the wrong way. Dieter Weber and Homer Johnston would provide sniper support from their perches while Vega would be on standby with his machine gun in case the raid went south. Shortly thereafter, Model made his final threat to kill another hostage in thirty minutes should his demand for airport transport not be met. Once Model's deadline expired, Chavez signaled Team 2 to breach as they had planned. Model and the other terrorists were killed in the ensuing raid. Their mission a success, Team 2 packed up their gear and returned to Hereford Base for the after-action report.
Vienna, Austria
A few weeks later, Team 2 was deployed on their second mission in Vienna, Austria where Erwin Ostermann and his staff had been taken hostage at his home. The leaders of the terrorists, Hans Fürchtner and Petra Dortmund demanded that several high profile criminals be released from prison and that they be given a helicopter transport to the nearby international airport, less they start killing the hostages. After Rainbow arrived at the scene, Chavez ordered Vega to set up his machine gun near Dieter Weber to provide support if needed.
The open layout of the building and number of hostages prevented Team 2 from conducting a direct assault. With their deadline fast approaching, Chavez gave the order to execute. The raid proved successful, with all terrorists neutralized and every hostage saved. Despite this, Vega was unhappy about his role in the operation as he was forced to watch it unfold and had yet to use his machine gun.
World Park, Spain
On April 2nd, former members of the Action Directe terrorist group assaulted a group of Thompson CSF employees at World Park and took thirty-five children hostage. Holing up at the park's command center inside a replica of a medieval castle, the terrorists demanded for the French government to release Carlos The Jackal along with several other Action Directe members.
Following Rainbow's arrival at the scene, Clark ordered the park's engineer to cut the power to the park command center in order to promote negotiations between the terrorists and Paul Bellow. Consequently, this agitated them and caused René to demand that the power be turned on in ten minutes or they would start killing hostages. Unfortunately, the deadline elapsed and Andre Herr executed a terminally ill girl named Anna Groot in the park courtyard.
With their options limited, Clark asked Tim Noonan what he could do to allow them to see what was happening on the inside. After scanning the castle's floor plan, Noonan devised a plan to plant a small surveillance camera. He asked the park engineer to temporarily shut off two cameras hide his presence and requested for someone to back him up. Fed up with playing a support role with his machine gun after the previous two missions, Vega volunteered. The two men made their way to the castle and successfully installed the camera, with Homer Johnston providing overwatch for the sentry that had been posted on the castle roof. The camera provided an out of focus feed but was sufficient at displaying the terrorist's movements.
A few hours later, René stated that they would kill a hostage every hour starting at 2200 unless their demands were met, leading Clark to initiate the rescue operation. George Tomlinson informed Chavez that his injured leg would prevent him from adequately participating in the breach. This prompted Chavez to ask Vega if he would be willing to take his place, to which he eagerly accepted. After Johnston neutralized the roof sentry, Vega and Team 2 descended from Daniel's Malloy's Night Hawk onto the roof. They then rappelled down to the command center's windows and started their breach. Unlike the other team members who had used charges to blow out the windows, Vega used leg-power alone to kick through his window. To his surprise, he landed directly on top of a terrorist. Ready for surprises, Vega punched the terrorist in the face and killed him with three rounds to his head. The remaining terrorists in the room where soon neutralized without incident. Vega began to survey the room and started kicking weapons away from each body and stacked them on a desk as Team 1 entered. Vega then took the lead with evacuating the children out of the castle.
Appearances
- Clear and Present Danger (1989)
- Debt of Honor (1994)
- Rainbow Six (1998)
Trivia
- Vega's nickname, Oso, is Spanish for "Bear".
- He is played by Jaime Gomez in the Clear and Present Danger film.
Template:Characters/Clear and Present Danger Template:Characters/Clear and Present Danger (Film)
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