James Hngham

James Hngham was a UNSC Orbital Drop Shock Trooper officer, and later volunteer for the SPARTAN-IV program. Hngham served as an acting battalion operations officer, a platoon commander, and a company executive officer within the 91st Shock Troops Battalion between 2550 and 2553. During the Battle of Ozymandias-2 Hngham, as executive officer of Delta Company, assumed command of his element after it was overwhelmed and destroyed by a local Flood infestation. Hngham coordinated a regional reconstitution of dislocated UNSC forces and local militia at Eucla Geothermal plant. His ad hoc element participated in numerous strikes and raids into Flood infested Eucla, and the surrounding area. Hngham's initiative was assessed to have decisively damaged the Flood's capacity to spread within his local area. In 2554, he was among survivors recovered from the planet following detailed eradication of the Flood planetside. For his leadership, Captain Hngham was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in a clandestine ceremony aboard the UNSC Out of the Night. 
Hngham, having initially joined the UNSC Marine Corps with the intent to be an infantry officer, was injured early in his Officer Foundations Course, this would exacerbate an already mounting generalised anxiety disorder that would cause him medical downgrade, and ultimately force him into the role of a logistics officer. Over the next four years, Hngham would significantly develop himself physically and mentally to overcome his feeling of failure and inadequacy. Hngham, finding the cadre of officer and soldier at his first posting displeasing, being part of a fifth-line logistics element, put in his first application to attempt selection as an ODST. 
After being returned to unit on his initial attempt at selection for a lack of general maturity, Hngham attempted again in January 2549, where he met then Corporal Ulysses Griver. Hngham and Griver would form a strong professional respect for each other and become friends, with Griver feeling out of place among a slower junior NCO cadre, and Hngham feeling out of touch with his officer cohort. Both marines passed selection in 2549 and found themselves, by sheer coincidence, together at the 91st Shock Troops Battalion. 
Hngham would complete his initial platoon command time before moving into the battalion's operations cell, and finally serving as XO Delta Company. Attached directly to the UNSC Pendragon, Hngham fought on Reach and Ozymandias-2, narrowly surviving both operations and developing moderate Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that he admittedly hid from medical staff and his superiors until his discharge. After Ozymandias-2, Hngham was promoted to Captain and posted to the Arminius Naval Academy as a Marine instructor. During his tenure at Arminius, Hngham began a successful application process to the Spartan-IV program. 
== Early Life & Education ==
James Hngham was born to Mary Hngham in 2528 in a middle-class suburb in Cote d'Azur on Sigma Octanus IV. He was raised by his mother, grandparents, and a range of periphery family friends and relations. In spite of the strong support network around him, the absence of his biological father left him perpetually troubled. He proved exceptionally bright as he began early education however struggled with focusing, easily distracted and far more engaged with his own intellectual pursuits. He also found himself often engaged in schoolyard scraps, a habit that would follow him throughout his life and career. From an early age, he had decided he was going to serve in the navy as an officer, like his godfather Jacques Dubois. Contrary to this plan, as a high-school student nearing graduation, he became deeply enamoured with Marine Corps infantry. Applying initially as an infantry marine, he was instead encouraged and persuaded to apply as an officer.
Throughout his schooling, Hngham pursued a side-career of professional boxing, beginning at sixteen. He also played a variety of contact team-sports, revelling in the opportunity to unleash his pent up aggression onto the opposition. He also pursued a number of artistic interests, including theatre and writing, both of which he involved himself with locally. 
== Military Career ==
=== Officer Candidate School ===
Hngham found his initial training period highly confronting and difficult. He struggled to adapt to the banal and meaningless torment of his instructors and found himself, as he perceived it, unjustly prosecuted as his platoon's scapegoat by his junior sergeant. His sergeant would ultimately be removed from his position after an inappropriate relationship with a female trainee, however his ruthless targeting and persistent public humiliation of Hngham would leave its mark. In his first four months out of initial training at Montgomery Officer Candidate School, Hngham's relentless pursuit of physical excellence to overcome his internalised inadequacy would lead him to fracture both shins. Unable to run, Hngham's insecurities only worsened, ultimately seeing him medically reclassified for the duration of his time at OCS. On graduation, Hngham was branched into Logistics, another point of deep humiliation. 
=== 63rd Strategic Services Regiment ===
=== ODST Selection ===
=== 91st Shock Troops Battalion ===
=== Arminius Naval Academy ===
== Civilian Career ==
In 2584, a retired Hngham published an authorised history of the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper service in the Human-Covenant War 2525 to 2552, titled "Feet First." Shortly after he published his own memoirs of service as a marine, ODST, and later Spartan-IV. Often in stark contradiction to the accounts of official historians, Hngham was often questioned about the veracity of his work. When an interview in 2586 suggested to him that emerging academics contested parts of his works, he famously replied "That's nice for them, but I was there." 
== Personal Life ==
Hngham notably never married or engaged in any high profile romantic relationships. This was not for lack of interest or effort. However his memoirs reflect an attitude of being married instead to the UEG and to service. His public office, duty to his constituents, and his loyalty to traditional values and friends, he confesses, often came between him and his individual wants. 
== Legacy ==