Wrec_It started a thread in the IAAPA BBS a while back on what people's club aliases meant. He was trying to get people to explain what, if anything, their aliases stood for. "Hess" is my alias, but there's nothing special about it: it's just my last name. But people keep calling me Rudolph . . . So I guess it's about time I came out of the closet.

Like Captain Miller in Saving Private Ryan, I've kept my civilian identity hidden so far. But in the interest of club morale, I'll let people guess - for a prize. So as a prize I hereby make the following offer: I will play the first person who guesses the true Hess from the choices below, AND in that game I promise to purchase a battleship for either Russia or Germany, depending on whether I am Allies or Axis, sometime in the first three moves. So take your pick, and respond to herald@axisandallies.net . . .

Will the real Hess please stand up:

a) Although reported to have died in 1987, I actually escaped years earlier from Spandau Prison disguised as a Putzfrau and have settled quietly in Truth-or-Consequences, New Mexico, where for many years my main hobby was performing touch-and-go landings in a Confederate Air Fore Messerschmitt 110. British intelligence knows where I am, but they don't bother me because they know I'll spill the beans on Lord Hamilton, the Duke of Windsor, and some other British nobility who had pro-Nazi sympathies in 1941. Although getting up in years, at a spry 108, my eyesight and mouse hand are still steady and I especially enjoy a good game of cutthroat A&A where I usually team up the British and Germans.

b) Son of Dame Myra Hess, the noted English pianist, who was awarded Commander in the Order of the British Empire for entertaining the British public during the Blitz with her outdoor noontime concerts in London. (They failed to notice that she always performed Bach, Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven, and other German composers.) I'm currently living in Brighton in East Sussex, England.

c) Associate Professor of Axis and Allies studies at Harvard University, my dissertation was entitled, "Purchasing Russian Battleships as the Preferred Route to Allied Victory." A long-haired radical assistant professor at the Divinity school named AxAmaster disputed my thesis and wrote his own book, but I got back at him by voting to deny him tenure.

d) American citizen, currently living in Zimbabwe (Kenya/Rhodesia on the AA map), supporting those monitoring the elections between the current government and the suppressed opposition. I raise guinea fowl, chickens, and other birds, on my not-yet-occupied land and wear Khakis 365 days a year. Can play A&A only when it's not cloudy because lightning strikes take out a lot of modems here.

e) Canadian citizen residing in Peshawar, Pakistan, doing relief work with the Medicines sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Afghan refugee camps. I wear a maple leaf on an arm band and speak French as much as possible so the local Taliban elements don't mistake me for coming from that country to the south of Canada where they chew gum, take photos of themselves, listen to KISS, and leave their women uncovered. I stay in my tent at night playing A&A through an Iridium phone connection.

f) German citizen living in Los Angeles for the last twelve years. I was a drug-and-alcohol counselor, now switched to caring for Axix&Allies addicts whose marriages, jobs, and lives have been ruined by compulsive game playing. Have set up AAAA (Axis&Allies Addicts Anonymous) support groups throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

g) High school senior in Wichita, Kansas, who writes for the school newspaper and is on the local debate team. Latest topic for the team: Resolved -- Should the school board drop the teaching of evolution (and other courses denying the existence of God) in the schools and institute the teaching of Axix&Allies courses instead? (After all, everyone gets down on their knees and prays to the dice god before hitting the Roll button at least once during the course of a game.)

h) Certified psychopath, diagnosed as having Multiple Personality Disorder, and is actually all seven of the above, depending on the day of the week.