He ended up in sniper training, and was moderately adept at the job.  In Vietnam, he was a mild success, dropping out tank commanders through the small windows at the front of the tank, removing irksome North Vietnamese officers from the chain of command at substantial distances, and similar feats that became bragging rights back at base.  By the time the United States had its "Honorable Retreat" he was already home, jobless and out of contact with most of his pre-war friends.  With no connections and no job prospects, he found himself drifting aimlessly when his parents wouldn’t give him a room.  He was soon approached by a group of people who had need of his only significant, employable skill. Having no other job prospects to occupy his time, he signed on, expecting them to be mafioso.  A short while later found out just what it was he was supposed to be killing.

Here again he excelled and found himself following the hunt wherever it took him.  A lack of connections and a few dozen fictional identities helped him disappear into the crowd for the next three decades.  His only real identity came in the loose organization of slayers to which he now belonged.

A few days after he started working, he bought a pack of cigarettes. Half a lifetime later, he is proficient in Kendo, Aikido, Judo, fencing, fencing, armed melee, unarmed melee, and maintains his original sniper skills though most of his peers have long since grown fat and complacent.  He also has a smoking habit he's been kicking for three years, started with the belief that he'd die of other, highly unnatural causes long before the cigarettes did him in.

Three years ago he had a revelation: He was in a back alley hunt  that culminated in a brawl with the target, and found himself out of breath for the first time he could remember.  He swore to drop cigarettes, though has had little success at it, and has been trying to keep in at least passable shape.

Harris belongs to the old school of assassination, believing in quality of fire over quantity.  He usually only carries a pistol and a blade.

Harris Dent is tall and thin, and rather unattractive.  The years have not been good to him, but this has been partially balanced by what could be modestly described as an active lifestyle.  He maintains a bitter, cynical outlook on the world, which often shows through in his facial expressions as he deadpans outlandish ideas (one of his recent theories, first developed at a small bar in Washington D.C., suggested that the Grand Old Party is controlled by vampires eager to maintain their wealth and privacy away from the government's prying eyes.  He included Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich on his list of Children of the Night, and threw in Dick Clark 'Because the guy obviously has trouble aging.  Think about it').