no, he's not a rookie here...it's stated that he and Rude have already been Turks and partners for a while. Reno is actually a materia tutorial for your rookie Turk in the game, so he's been around the block. i think the indication here was it's the first time you the player get to play as Reno... i'm not certain, though. the script is really hard to dredge through... D: