Another grin as he dips his head in a nod. "Guilty as charged, ma'am," he says, slipping it in once more as a tease this time as he sits up again, shoulders straight, a military bearing even sitting backward in a chair. "I was a major in the Texas cavalry. I was never formally discharged that I know of, but as the Confederacy lost the war..." A little one-shouldered shrug. He's never been ashamed of his service, and he doesn't plan on starting now.

"Whitlock was my name then, Major Jasper Whitlock. I took the name 'Hale' when Alice and I joined the family in 1950. My adopted sister Rosalie's surname." He smiles wryly, nostalgic for those first fraught months with the family. It had taken him a long time to adjust to being around so many other vampires who had no ill intentions, and even longer for him to stop feeling overprotective of Alice being around so many other vampires who had no ill intentions. "She wasn't too keen to share it at first, but eventually she admitted it would help us blend in if she and I could pose as twins. You didn't meet her, I don't believe, but we have very similar coloring."