I love hearing from authors about the choices they've made about their characters, particularly when it has to do with a book or series I love. In the case of Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman recently spoke about why he chose the Coast Guard for Carl's military background, and his reasoning reflects a bit of his real-life experience.
Among the topics that came up at the Audible: Goddamnit, Donut: A Totally Professional Panel with Matt Dinniman and Jeff Hays panel at San Diego Comic-Con was why Carl was in the Coast Guard rather than some other military branch. As it happens, Dinniman has encountered quite a few people from the Coast Guard in the Pacific Northwest part of the U.S, and as he pointed out, we don't see many service members from that branch in fiction:
