Monsters. Kaijus. Whatever the hell those malicious and massive creatures were and whatever malicious intentions they contained just included them killing many people who were trying to evacuate the area, families who had no idea what was occurring, and leaving pure destruction behind if they survived against the Jaegers.
Many people who volunteered to work in this field to defeat the Kaijus from entering the human world were doing their ultimate best to fight them off to keep people safe from this mayhem. But, these Kaijus weren't just in one spot but they were all across the globe meaning there had to be some people willing to risk their lives to save humanity from these monsters. Studies have been taken that these monsters came from an unknown source deep within the oceans but no one ever came to a conclusion of exactly where and why.
This young man was set onto one of the orginal Jaegers built during these times of chaos, his duty to help his father protect the people from fighting off these kaijus. The fight was in a life or death situation between the Jaeger which contained humans against this evil and massive monster. Far larger than an average building, it was completely hostile. The young man and his father didn't give up but to a saddened conclusion, the young man lost his father. Richard, being the young man, ended up surviving and killed the monster by himself despite the Jaeger needing two people to control it.
Richard abandoned that job and decided to hide away from everything so he worked as an architect helping in the construction of building a wall to keep the Kaijus out of Gotham's City. 'This is exactly what I needed and oh how they love to tamper with my trauma.' He was brought to Hong Kong in order to train so he could get his position back of the Jaeger which he had a bittersweet moment with the news. He was a bit sour and distant towards the Captain and everyone else until he was face to face with you. Your job did keep track on how people trained in order to get on a Jaeger.