Meryl Silverburgh

Meryl Silverburgh (メリル・シルバーバーグ), was the commanding officer of Rat Patrol Team 01 of the CID. Prior to her inauguration as commander, Meryl was a well-known career soldier due to her involvement in the Shadow Moses Incident of 2005, her first mission where she worked with famed mercenary Solid Snake. She was thought to be the niece of former FOXHOUND commander Roy Campbell but was later discovered to actually be his daughter.

Early life and career
According to official records, Meryl Silverburgh was the daughter of Roy Campbell's younger brother, Matt Campbell. However, more recent evidence showed that Meryl was born after an affair between Roy Campbell and her mother. When Meryl was young, Matt Campbell was killed in action during the Gulf War. After that, she took on her mother's maiden name.

Raised in a house of military traditions, Meryl trained herself throughout her childhood in the 'arts' of soldiery. She admired the FOXHOUND unit, viewing the days when her uncle and Solid Snake were members in the unit’s heyday, and wears a paint tattoo of the unit's 1990s logo on her left shoulder. She joined the armed forces after graduating high school and received extensive psychotherapy to prevent any attraction to the opposite sex. Despite this psychotherapy, she still falls in love with Snake.

She was assigned to the nuclear disposal facility on Shadow Moses in 2005 as an emergency replacement, after several soldiers were reported missing. Following her arrival on the island, the unit involved with the exercise revolted along with members of FOXHOUND and took over the facility along with Metal Gear REX, which was secretly being developed there by ArmsTech. Though initially believed to be an unfortunate coincidence, it was later revealed that the Pentagon had deliberately assigned her to Shadow Moses that same day in order to force Roy Campbell to withhold vital information from Snake during the events of the Shadow Moses Incident. Meryl refused to join in with the rebellion and was taken prisoner, placed in the adjacent holding cell to the DARPA Chief Donald Anderson. Before this however, ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker gave Meryl a PAL card before undergoing a torture session by Revolver Ocelot. This PAL card could be used to activate or deactivate REX, and could only be used once.

Afterwards, her cell guard, Johnny Sasaki, opened the wrong door in confusion and accidentally released her. She then subdues him, stealing his uniform afterwards. She met up with Solid Snake, who had been forced out of retirement by the U.S. government in order to neutralize the terrorists, and the two eventually began working together. She managed to stay hidden by disguising herself as one of the Genome Soldiers using the clothes she stole from Johnny Sasaki.

Later, the pair met up on the first floor basement of the Nuclear Warhead Storage Building. She gave the PAL card to Snake and then the two headed to the Commander's Room where Psycho Mantis took control of Meryl's mind. Meryl held her gun against Snake, but Snake, realizing she was not herself, managed to knock her out. Snake then dispatched Mantis and he and Meryl headed north in order to destroy Metal Gear. However, Meryl was shot and subsequently captured by FOXHOUND member Sniper Wolf. In an attempt to rescue Meryl and complete his mission, Snake engaged in a sniping duel with Wolf and was eventually lured into an ambush by her where he was also captured. Snake is then himself put through a series of torture sessions by Ocelot.

Snake was strong enough to outlast Ocelot's torture and manages to escape from his confinement. Meryl is later rescued by Snake after his fight with Liquid Snake and the two manage to escape together after the destruction of Metal Gear REX. After Roy Campbell faked Snake and Meryl's deaths with their jeep crashing into the ocean, Snake and Meryl decided they would retreat and live a normal life together.

Post-Shadow Moses
After Shadow Moses, Snake and Meryl lived together for some time, however, Snake accepted that he will never be a normal person, and will only ever spend his life fighting. As a result, he left her and joined Otacon to form Philanthropy. Meryl continued to believe in Snake. She re-entered the military thanks to Campbell's connections, where she was posted to the Army's PMC watchdog, the USACIDC (U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command), as the head of her own team, Rat Patrol 01.

In 2014, she became involved in a secret operation to capture Liquid Ocelot. However, after the events of the Manhattan Incident, she began to hate her father after he apparently wedded a young brunette, even going as far as to call him a "womanizing piece of shit."

When she met Snake again for the first time during the Guns of the Patriots incident, in the Middle East, she expressed shock upon looking at Snake's more aged appearance, and was clearly upset. She then became infuriated when she learned that it was Campbell who had sent him there. In an attempt to take Liquid by force, in Eastern Europe, she became involved in the massacre that wounded her and her unit, as well as killing most of the nearby military soldiers and damaging some of the vessels.

Meryl helped Snake on his infiltration of Outer Haven, however, she is possesed by Screaming Mantis, echoing her similar predicament nine years before. Snake saves her from the mind control, and apologizes, feeling he is at fault for dragging her into everything. She tearfully assures him they will meet again on the outside, Snake then leaves to destroy Haven's A.I.

After the mission, Meryl finally makes peace with her father, and agrees to marry Johnny, who had loved her ever since she knocked him out for his clothes in Shadow Moses.

Behind the scenes

 * Meryl Silverburgh is voiced by Debi Mae West (credited as Mae Zadler in the original Metal Gear Solid) in English and by Kyoko Terase (credited as Megumi Terease in Policenauts) in Japanese.
 * Meryl and Olga Gurlukovich have the same Japanese voice actress (Kyoko Terase).
 * The original Metal Gear Solid (and the remake, The Twin Snakes) featured an alternate ending in which Meryl dies if the player submits to Ocelot's torture. This ending is non-canonical due to her appearence in Metal Gear Solid 4.
 * Policenauts_Meryl.jpg's character is based on a character of the same name from Hideo Kojima's earlier game Policenauts. In addition to having similar character designs and backstories (being involved in FOXHOUND), they were both portrayed by the same Japanese voice actress (Kyoko Terase). Further likening the two characters is the fact Meryl's partner in Policenauts is named Dave Forrest (who secretly loves her), which is also Solid Snake's real first name. In Metal Gear Solid 4, the likeness is taken even further with the inclusion of Meryl's earrings, which are handgun bullets (probably .45 ACP), just like the original Meryl wore. Her partners in both Policenauts and Metal Gear Solid 4 are also named Ed and Jonathan. Despite all these similarities, they are not intended to be the same character.
 * In The Twin Snakes, Meryl's eyes are a hazel brown, but in Metal Gear Solid 4 they are blue.
 * Meryl makes appearances in the Snake Tales included with Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, reusing Olga's voice clips.
 * Also in Substance, in Snake's VR Mission, Variety Level 04, Meryl is seen lying on the floor. Snake must take out 26 enemy "soldiers" that are converging on her location within a 3 minute time limit.
 * In The Twin Snakes, if the player unlocked the Tuxedo for Snake, she will be wearing a female version of Snake's sneaking suit, looking similar to her appearance in concept artwork for the original Metal Gear Solid, which was also used for the MGS Radio Drama.
 * A costume available to download for LittleBigPlanet allows the Sackboys to dress up as Meryl.
 * Along with other characters of the series such as her father Roy Campbell, Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, Mei Ling, Liquid Snake, Big Boss and EVA, Meryl makes a cameo appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as an obtainable sticker, whose use is exclusive only to Solid Snake during the Subspace Emissary Adventure Mode.