In Russian, sokol means "falcon". Thus, Orlovsky is using the same bird-style class of call sign as Sawyer, who uses "eagle" for his.
Captain Bannon's father(s). In one phone call, his mother picks up the phone. He wants to talk to his father, and asks if "Earl" is home. Then, when he leaves the message on the answering machine before the battle of Cascade Falls, he says that he "probably should've stayed out of the army in the first place instead of signing up because of what I thought dad would think. Were they two different people? Also ties into fridge horror below.
Alternate interpretation: From the get-go, it is pretty obvious that Earl is not Bannon's father. When he asks for him in his second phone call, he does not want to speak to him, he wants to make sure he is not around so that Bannon may talk openly to his mother. See also fridge horror below.
When Captain Malashenko receives news of his loss back in Russia and you realize that the civilians Bannon slaughtered in the B-2 bomber commando mission were possibly Malashenko's entire family.
If you think about the fridge brilliance speculations above, and the phone call revealing that Earl is alcoholic and abusive to Harriet, it might suddenly hit you that Bannon's signing up for the Army to make his biological dad proud left his mother all alone when her new husband turned aggressive. Of course Bannon couldn't have known this would happen in advance, and of course it's not his fault Earl is abusive, but it could very possibly have added to his regret for signing up nonetheless.
For some real Nightmare Fuel, pay close attention to the opening cinematic. One of the brief clips shows US troops holding off the advancing Soviets at a beach resort...in MOPP gear. MOPP suits are only to be worn in a chemical warfare environment, and as for casualties, remember this line from Generation Kill: "If you get hit in a chemical environment, you're fucked anyway." The only question is whether the chemical attack was a scorched-earth response by the Americans, or a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon by the Russians.
Also qualifies as Fridge Brilliance - it is well-known, post-Cold War, that tear gas and other non-lethal but disabling chemical weapons were part of both NATO and Soviet war planning.
