Lieutenant Commander Samuel Fisher, USN (Ret.), was a member of Third Echelon, a top-secret sub-branch within the National Security Agency (NSA). He is 177 cm (5 feet 10 inches) tall, weighs 78 kg (170 pounds),[1] has greying brown hair and gre#n eyes. He was the first person to be recruited for field operative of the "Splinter Cell" program for Third Echelon. Fisher is an expert in the art of stealth, trained in various techniques and tactics, and highly trained in fieldcraft. He is also an expert in the Israeli hand-to-hand combat system of Krav Maga.[2] In Splinter Cell: Conviction, he utilized the Center Axis Relock, a modern gun-fighting technique used in close quarters combat. He prefers to work alone in the field. When not on assignment or at Fort Meade, Fisher resided in a townhouse in Towson, Maryland.
Fisher was born on August 8, 1957[3] in Towson, Maryland.[4] 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 later graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science. While Fisher was stationed at an U.S. Air Force Base in Germany during the 1980s, he met Regan Burns and they married in 1984. They had one daughter together, Sarah (born May 31, 1985 in Frankfurt, Germany).[5] Fisher and Regan later divorced and she had Sarah's surname changed. Regan died from ovarian cancer sometime in 2000[6] and Sarah was killed by a "drunk driver" in September 2008. However, it was established that the death of his daughter was no accident. After learning this, Fisher attempts to uncover why his daughter was murdered, and what connections it has to Third Echelon, which has become bogged down with red tape to the point of ineffectiveness and corruption. It is soon revealed that Sarah is alive and would have been used as leverage to frame Sam for an unsuccessful coup against the U.S. President.