Edward Buck

Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck (SN: 92458-37017-EB) is a Staff Non-Commissioned Officer in the UNSC Marine Corps, and is an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.

Summary
Counting time spent in cryo-sleep, Buck is a 25-year veteran of the war. He served in numerous battles throughout the Human-Covenant war. Watching so many of his fellow Marines die has left Buck thick-skinned and short-fused, but this wasn't always so. He was regarded as an extremely skilled Marine and by the Battle of Earth, was the commander of &quot;The Squad&quot; until Captain Veronica Dare took responsibility before the drop on New Mombasa, Kenya in October 20, 2552.

Early life and military career
Edward Buck was born in 2510 in New Albany in Lombard on Draco III. In 2528, when he was eighteen, he enlisted in the UNSC Marine Corps and followed it through as a career. He served in many battles, including the Harvest Campaign and the Fall of Reach. At some point, Buck was in a romantic relationship with Veronica Dare. Buck's last known place of residence is Karnak on Draco III, where he is also a citizen. His civilian occupation is listed as student.

Fall of Reach
Buck was present in the Fall of Reach, fighting in New Alexandria. At some point, he requested Noble 6's assistance to either escort him to a collapsed building on a classified operation or help him save his men. Buck became one of the few lucky survivors of Reach's fall, having escaped New Alexandria and made it safely to Earth.

Battle of Earth
During the Battle of Earth in 2552, Buck's squad was a part of a larger ODST unit that was to be inserted onto the Prophet of Regret's Flagship stationed over the city of New Mombasa. His mission changed when Captain Dare took control of the squad at the last moment before the orbital drop, in order to use them for her own classified mission.

In mid-drop, Dare ordered the squad to steer their HEVs away from the Carrier. Right after this, the carrier jumped into Slipspace above the city, generating a massive EMP shockwave and disabling the pods' electronic systems. As a result, the pods were scattered and crashed in several sections in the city.

After the EMP, Buck's pod bounced off one building, deflected off a second, and landed upside down. He immediately made radio contact with Dare, whose hatch malfunctioned and wouldn't open. After a brief discussion, he realized that Covenant forces were heading for Dare's crash site. On his way to the crash site, he found the corpses of several Sangheili; upon asking Dare about the matter (and noting that the Jiralhanae appeared to be responsible), he was told that the information was classified. Later, Veronica contacted him, telling him the Covenant had found her and were moving in on her location. After fighting his way through a large unit of Covenant, including a Hunter pair, he made it to Tayari Plaza, Dare's crash site, where her pod was under fire by a trio of Unggoy. After dispatching the Unggoy, he opened up her pod to find it empty. A Huragok approached him holding Dare's damaged helmet, and Buck backed away from the mysterious alien before Romeo, on a balcony overlooking the crash site and believing the Huragok to be hostile, shot it through the head.

Buck abandoned Dare's original mission and focused on reuniting his squad and evacuating the city in one piece. He and Romeo made their way to the NMPD Headquarters building, where he made contact with Dutch and Mickey via an NMPD Officer. Dutch and Mickey, who were at the ONI Alpha Site, offered Buck an air evac via Pelican. On the way to the landing zone, Buck tried to contact the Rookie, but received no response.

When Dutch and Mickey's dropship arrived at NMPD HQ, it was ambushed and shot down by two patrolling Banshees. Romeo and Buck then moved through the NMPD Headquarters to find and rescue their squadmates on top of a neighboring skyscraper, defending it from waves of Covenant aircraft and infantry assaults. During the ensuing fight, a Jiralhanae Chieftain badly wounded Romeo with its Gravity Hammer, resulting in a punctured lung, before being fatally stabbed in the neck by Buck. Buck then led the other ODSTs to Kikowani Station, intending to take the train out of the city, but found that the train tunnels had been flooded. He decided to steal a Phantom to escape the city, killing many Huragok in their Recharge Stations on the way out. They encountered a Scarab as well, which Buck successfully destroyed. After finally making it out of the city, he realized where Dare might be and ordered Mickey to fly the captured Phantom back into the city.

He headed into the Superintendent's Data Center alone, going right through the Yanme'e hive. When he neared the Data Center, he was reunited with Dare, the Rookie, and the Huragok Vergil. Unaware as to the importance of the Huragok, he had a quick conversation with Dare as to why Vergil was so important, letting it slip to Dare that he had killed "one or two" Huragok, much to her annoyance. After finally making it to the elevator, Dare punched Buck in the face, for "abandoning the mission"; a furious Buck complained that she had been MIA, and that his squad was scattered only to be cut off by Dare, who gave him a passionate kiss for "coming back". Remembering the Rookie and Vergil were there and (rather awkwardly) watching, he congratulated the former on doing a good job.

After battling through a Covenant outpost, and boarding another elevator for the highway, the presence of the Covenant fleet was revealed to Dare. Irritated that Buck had neglected to inform her of the fleet, the two began arguing again, Buck protesting that he had been preoccupied with keeping the helpless Vergil alive. Taking the gunner position on various Warthogs and a Scorpion, Buck and the Rookie covered Dare and Vergil's Olifant down the highway, witnessing the arrival of more Covenant ships—including two Assault Carriers—and marveling at their size. When the first Carrier started to glass the city, he was reminded of Reach and briefly began to panic before Dare calmed him down. The Olifant was later severely damaged by a Scarab, and, knowing that the Covenant had glassed the highway further down, Buck ordered Mickey to meet them at a new location, the entrance to Uplift Reserve.

Buck and the others took the next exit off the highway, and the Rookie and Buck secured a building to hold and wait for Mickey's dropship to arrive. After fighting off waves of Covenant, Mickey arrived, and as the squad was evacuating, an Assault Carrier arrived close to their position. A frightened Vergil then refused to get on the Phantom, and was shoved in by Buck while Dare pulled it in the gravity beam. The group successfully escaped the city as it was glassed by the Covenant fleet.

Trivia

 * Buck is voiced and given likeness to by Nathan Fillion. He was described by Nathan Fillion himself as "a bit hardened and a bit cranky."
 * Nathan Fillion also starred in Halo 3 voicing Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds which Reynolds' quotes are shared with Buck in the game.
 * Buck is unlocked for play in Firefight by getting the Tayari Plaza Achievement In Halo 3: ODST.
 * Some of his lines, such as "Bam, said the lady" and "GORRAM!" come from the television shows Castle and Firefly respectively, which Nathan Fillion also starred in.
 * In an Easter Egg in the Epilogue cutscene after the credits, if you look to the left near the end of Johnson's talk with Vergil, the camera will pan over to Buck standing next to a caveman, he attempts to groom and eat off it.
 * Rarely, if you jump with Buck somewhere in the vehicle, he will sing the first few bars of "Dixie" in reference to The Dukes of Hazard.
 * Buck was made into an action figure by McFarlane Toys, and was released sometime in June of 2010.
 * Buck's armor takes substantial combat damage by the end of the ODST campaign. This can be seen in the form of various plasma burns on its outer shell, pieces of glass embedded in the torso, parts of drone wing on his chest plate, several badly scratched components, and noticeable splashes of Yanme'e blood on several areas.
 * Buck's voice can be purchased for 15,000 credits to use in Halo: Reach's Firefight mode. The description says that "Truly, If he were any better, he'd be a Spartan".
 * Through a glitch on Reach's "New Alexandria" level, it is possible to have Buck or a random ODST fly with you on your Falcon's turret. To do this, one must first block Buck's path, just as he is about to land. If you're blocking him properly, he won't disembark the pilot's seat of his Falcon and just sit there. Once you look away after a few seconds, there is a good chance random ODST's (ones that are meant to take his Falcon away) will spawn right next to it. Once the Falcon is away, there will be at least one single ODST standing there, and whether it is Buck or not, he'll be invincible. If you kill one of the Soldiers on your turret (providing he/she isn't already dead) and you land close enough to the ODST/Buck, he'll get onto the empty turret seat. This glitch is useful for those on Legendary, since there is absolutely no way the ODST can be killed unless the Falcon is completely shot out of the sky.
 * During this level, Buck says he is a member of the 11th ODST, rather than the 7th. This could be a mistake on Bungie's part or it could simply mean he was a member of another battalion at the time.
 * Also in that level, if you manage to get up close to Buck he has the same appearance as every other ODST in Reach, however, if you stare at him he will have Buck's voice when he talks.
 * In Halo: Reach, if one were to have his voice as their firefight voice and pick up a Spartan Laser, he would announce "I am green and very, very mean!" This is a reference to Halo 3: ODST when they were about to drop in which the original was "We are green and very, very mean!"
 * In Halo: Reach on New Alexandria, if the player is to follow Buck to the building he visits, and then use the theater flying camera to follow him, it reveals that he merely enters the building, stands still for a few seconds, then disappears.
 * Buck is the first playable character in the Halo series to speak while being controlled by the player.

List of appearances

 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Reach