- "I have visual on Stonehenge, commencing mission!"
- —Walrus moments before get shot down
Arnaud "Walrus" Durand, callsign Walrus. One of the few attack aircraft aces of the Erusean Air Force. Arnaud trained hard from a young age to become a military pilot, inspired by watching flights of AH-64 conducting frequent flights from an army base near his childhood home north of Farbanti. When he was older, however, he chose instead to join the Air Force and fly fast jets rather than helicopter gunships, as breaking the sound barrier was more much more appealing that hovering above ground.
His comrades on the ground considered him as rather dull and even somewhat awkward, the kind of person who rarely stands out or talks much. This greatly contrasted with his attitude while in the air, becoming louder, almost arrogant and boastful, enjoying making low level passes and stunts over his base as well as risky maneuvers during combat training. This led to his nickname and eventual TAC name of Walrus, being "kind of awkward, but only while on land". This tendency of making risky moves naturally put him at odds with his superiors, but despite the disciplinary actions he often took nobody could deny his skill and effectiveness.
This daredevil attitude continued during the Lighthouse War, as when he began flying combat missions against Osea he enjoyed what was described by his comrades, as "putting an airshow over enemy troops". He would knock out the air defenses with fast direct strafing attacks, pulling out from a dive at the last possible second. This would be followed by high speed passes and aerobatic maneuvers above the enemies as a way of taunting them. He seemed undisturbed by the fact that he often returned to the base with multiple bullet and shrapnel holes from anti-aircraft fire. A former crew member that flew with Arnaud as his WSO/co-pilot during the war described how it was flying with him in a few words: "It was terrifying. Watching the tracers of anti-air shells whizzing past by the cockpit is scary enough, but when you dive right at them you're almost as scared as the guys on the ground watching all those 40+ tons of metal and fuel roaring towards them. Still, you couldn't help but respect the guy as he pulled those crazy-ass maneuvers and somehow brought you back to the base on one piece." Arnaud became simultaneously feared and respected by Osean forces for his display of bravado, while Eruseans on the ground cheered at the sight of the "black platypus" attacking the Oseans in close air support missions.
On August 19, when Erusean command finally learned that Osea was trying to repair Stonehenge's only surviving railgun, Arnaud was one of several attack aircraft pilots scrambled to try and destroy the Osean forces defending Stonehenge. He initially believed he would be in charge of knocking out the railgun itself, but that task was assigned to at least three different bomber squadrons which would attack Stonehenge from the south. Meanwhile, Arnaud was ordered to escort a group of CH-47s carrying Erusean soldiers headed to conduct a heliborne assault on the Osean Ground Defense Force troops by attacking their rearguard, hoping to take control of Stonehenge even if the bombing of the railgun itself failed. This offensive, like the rest of the Erusean attacks, were a disaster. Both him and the helicopters were intercepted by the Strider Squadron of the Osean Long Range Strategic Strike Group and swiftly shot down. He and his WSO, an Erusean rookie named called Jacques Carrel, both was unable to eject and died.