McLees (Marine)

Biography

According to the E3 2000 demo, McLees was serving on the UNSC Pillar of Autumn in 2552, which crash-landed on Halo. There, McLees and the rest of his squad where to infiltrate a Covenant held bunker. Wang, Sergeant Stacker, and Laine headed toward the bunker on foot, as Geoff, Sigurd, and McLees went by Warthog, with McLees on the gunner.

McLees and the rest of the squad penetrated the outside of the bunker, but lost Sigurd in the process. He was then assigned to guard the entrance, as Sergeant Stacker, Laine, and Wang entered the bunker. When the three of them got ambushed by Elites, they pulled back out topside, as Laine and Wang were killed. McLees and Geoff went inside, only to see the sergeant tell them to head back out. As the Sergeant died in a barrage of plasma fire, Geoff and McLees headed up the ramps. McLees then tells Geoff to make a run for it, and holds his position. The Elites followed the two Marines up the ramp, only to get shot by McLees. A few seconds later, they manage to incapacitate McLees with shots to his torso and legs. McLees was killed when he ignited his own fragmentation grenade and killed an entire Elite squad and destroyed a couple of pieces of Covenant equipment.

Trivia

• McLees can be seen in the final game. In the "Jenkins Helmet Record", when Keyes approaches the dead Elite, he can briefly be seen in the background.
• The E3 2000 demo was shot while Bungie was still working on the game. Some aspects of the demo there couldn't be canon. For instance, the Master Chief was in the demo, while in both Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo: The Flood there was never a mention of the Master Chief participating in such mission.
• He was named after Robert McLees, a weapons designer and animator from Bungie.