A combat veteran of over a hundred silent wars, Sam Fisher is one of the most experienced and highly respected covert operatives in the U.S. intelligence community. Before his NSA career, Fisher was a CIA operative within the Special Activities Division (Special Operations Group), a highly decorated sailor in the U.S. Navy, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander while serving in the Navy SEALs as an operator of SEAL Team 3, and a Tier One operator within DEVGRU of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). He retired from active duty sometime in 1996, but later returned to work for the NSA in 2004, when he was recruited into Third Echelon. Fisher is an expert in the art of stealth, trained in various techniques and tactics, and highly trained in fieldcraft. He is extremely proficient in both armed and unarmed combat, specifically SEAL CQB and Krav Maga, and can also speak seven foreign languages (i.e. Russian, Korean, Arabic, German, Chinese, Persian and Spanish) as well as understand a wide variety of other languages. When possible, Fisher operates almost exclusively at night and prefers to work alone in the field.
While not much is known about his early life, it is known that Fisher attended a military boarding school shortly after his parents died when he was a child. He received a bachelor's degree in Political Science from the U.S. Naval Academy. Documentation on his activities from the late-1970s to the 1980s are unavailable and considered classified. What little unclassified data is known about Fisher states that during the 1980s he was stationed at a U.S. Air Force Base in western Germany, where he met NSA cryptanalyst Regan Burns, whom he later married (sometime between late-1984 and early-1985) after he learned she was pregnant, while allegedly working as a "diplomatic aide" in the Republic of Georgia. In the summer of 1985, Regan gave birth to their only child whom they named Sarah (born May 31). They eventually divorced after four years of marriage. Regan later died from ovarian cancer when Sarah was fifteen (i.e. sometime in 2000). In 1989, Fisher took part in a raid during Operation Just Cause, when he was part of a CIA raiding team that went into a bank in Panama searching for some of Manuel Noriega's drug money. He is a veteran of the Gulf War (1990-1991), during which he participated in several SEAL operations throughout the Persian Gulf. These events, combined with his training, combat experience and service record, played a part in Fisher being selected to spearhead Third Echelon's "Splinter Cell" program as its first field operative after he was approached by Colonel Irving Lambert, a high-ranking official in the NSA who convinced Fisher to come back to active service.
For two decades, Fisher has been involved in numerous armed conflicts throughout the world, many of them unconventional. Over the course of his extensive service career, he has served in hot spots such as the Persian Gulf (i.e. Iraq, Kuwait, etc.), Colombia, Senegal, and Afghanistan as well as taking special assignments in North Korea, Russia, Panama, the former East Germany, and the Republic of Georgia. He has not only survived, but has also excelled in the field of covert operations through hard work, insatiable curiosity and brutal honesty. Combat, espionage and constant training have defined his adult life; his tactical experience has become part of his instinct. He is quiet, instinctive, and observant: somebody who watches from the outside. Even outside of work he is most comfortable on the fringes of society, keenly observant but still removed.
Though fully aware and confident of his abilities, Fisher understands that his survival has often been a gift of chance. He knows he is human and fallible, and he does not want to die. Highly-trained, skilled and experienced, Fisher possesses a distinctly dark sense of humor, which he uses to control his fears and keep himself calm while in the field. Personality-wise, Fisher is abrasive and honest, and has little patience for niceties and even less for lies, especially when the immediate problem presents itself. Unlike younger operatives, he is not a blind idealist.
But in order to achieve the discipline required for his work, Fisher has had to bury certain aspects of himself. His ability to detach himself emotionally from the immediate situation in order to better achieve his objectives is an exceptional attribute. Though, on rare occasions, his emotions have been known to surface. A man of few words, he is truly himself only when he is on the job – he has, in a sense, become what he does. He has acquired an admirable collection of scars, war experiences, and a place in military history. He has little left to prove to the world and he has no interest in glory. If he fights, it is because he believes he is capable of provoking positive change.
In September 2007, Sam Fisher is sent on a mission to Iceland. After preventing the launch of a warhead, Fisher is quickly pulled out only to find out from Lambert that his daughter, Sarah, was killed by a drunk driver. After her funeral, Fisher disappeared from sight.
Unable to cope with his mounting personal losses, Fisher is relieved of duty as a Splinter Cell. A few months later, Lambert reassigns him to a high-risk, deep cover operation to infiltrate Malton to evac some High Value Targets who were part of and needed in the American Government. After Third Echelon staged his conviction as a murderer and a terrorist, Dishonorably Discharged and imprisoned in Malton.
After seeing the corruption of the government, throwing prisoners in with normal civilians to fight for their lives, Sam decided to take things into his own hands.
