Character Bio: Terry Glass

Art by Steve Lieber.
Art by Steve Lieber.

Name: Terry Glass

Rank: Chief Warrant Officer (2), United States Army




About The Character

Terry Glass is the protagonist of Shooters. Terry is the youngest of the military men in his family (his father, a retired Lt. Colonel was infantry during the Viet Nam conflict). Glass is a member of the special forces community, a Green Beret based at Fort Lewis (now, Joint Base Lewis/McChord), in Washington State—a member of the 19th Special Forces Group


Terry grew up around the world, the son of a career Army officer who was relocated often—Germany, Spain, Italy, even, briefly, Iran. The Glass family is large (Terry has three brothers and two sisters), and somewhat combative and combustible, albeit still closely knit. 


After a somewhat tempestuous teenage period, Terry joined the military to put himself through college; like his father, he became an infantryman—with a single goal in mind: Special Forces. 


He quickly passed the SF application process, and the brutal Qualification Course, at Fort Bragg, and was inducted into the Green Berets. (During this period, he first met and befriended Eddie Mawae, a Hawaiian/Somoan soldier.) 


Just prior to induction into Special Forces, Terry met and falls in love with Patricia Galloway, whom he married in a whirlwind courtship. Soon, Patricia is pregnant with a daughter, who was born while Terry is in the field. 


At the start of Shooters, however, the relationship between Patty and Terry is fragile; their trial separation has been put on hold as Terry convalesces from combat injuries. 


“With Terry, I wanted a kind of everyman. He's an amalgam of several people—some military, some not—and, while he's a good man, he's not exactly a saint. As good as he at his job, as proficient as he is in waging war, he's made a lot of mistakes, notably in his relationship with his wife and child,” says Eric Trautmann, Shooters' co-writer. “It's not the story of Saint Terry. He's a good man, but like all good men, he's imperfect.” 


Writer Brandon Jerwa: "I wanted to make sure that Terry's more extreme reactions were presented in a way that felt very real. There was a real risk of making him look insane, so balance was very important.


"I also wanted the reader to be a little horrified BY him, and FOR him. That may have been the hardest part: Showing our hero coming apart at the seams believably, but still retaining the character traits that make him someone you would sympathize with."


Artist Steve Lieber: "My goal is always to tell the truth about a character as best I can. With Terry, he's a guy with brains, energy,  strength and a sense of humor, all in the service of dealing with a lot of pain, both physical and emotional. I did everything I could to get these facts across, and I hope my respect for what guys like him have to do is evident on the page."


Lieber crafted some designs for Terry early on in the book's development, though the final version (see the image above) is substantially different.  Still, the level of attention to detail, and the "feel" of the character were evident early on. Glass was never a musclebound, stereotypical "comic hero"—under Lieber's pencil, he's very much a real, grounded character.

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