General Shepherd

"Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye... and the world just f**kin' watched. Tomorrow, there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots. I know you understand."

- Shepherd reveals the past incidents to Soap as he prepares to kill him in the final mission of MW2, Endgame.

Lieutenant General Hershel von Shepherd III is a U.S. Army officer in charge of Task Force 141, and the hidden main antagonist of the 2009 video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Before 2016, Shepherd commanded 30,000 Marines in the Middle East in the Second Russian Civil War. Shepherd watched in shock as the nuclear bomb killed his fellow Marines. With the explosion of the bomb, the general wanted to find a way to bring U.S. back to global power. In the battle for occupying Afghanistan, Shepherd wanted an enemy to help increase the U.S. military and he found an enemy: Vladimir Makarov. Now that he had Task Force 141, Shepherd had Joseph Allen go undercover in Moscow disguised as Alexei Borodin. Allen/Borodin was killed by Makarov at Zakhaev International Airport and the Russians blamed the U.S. for the attack. The Secretary of Defense gave Shepherd command of the U.S. military and now he had the manpower to try and become a hero and bring Ultranationalist Russia to the ground.

Sometime after the rescue of Captain John Price, Shepherd planned a personal war against the Ultranationalists and anyone who knew of Joseph Allen. Shepherd sent Roach and Ghost to capture intel on Makarov, then he mercilessly executed them and gave them a sadistic funeral pyre, when Shepherd soaked them in gas and lit them with his cigarette. Shepherd and his men, Shadow Company, then began their plan to kill Makarov and the rest of Task Force 141. At the boneyard, Makarov reveals Shepherd's command base, "Site Hotel Bravo", to Price. With his command falling apart, Shepherd tries to escape in a helicopter, which is shot down by Price. Shepherd escapes the crash site and pinned MacTavish down. The general then told Soap of the past incidents before preparing to execute him. Price saved Soap and the two fought. Just when Shepherd was about to beat Price to death, Soap threw the knife Shepherd pinned him with into the general's left eye, killing him. He was later buried at the Arlington National Cemetery and was called a "War Hero" by many people at that time.

Trivia

 * Makarov is the Big Bad in the Modern Warfare series due to being the cause of the events of the series; however, General Shepherd takes the role of the main antagonist in Modern Warfare 2 because he had bigger plans than anyone else.
 * Shepherd is voiced by Lance Henriksen.
 * Shepherd shares many similarities with General Hummel from The Rock, as both were fallen US military generals who turned rogue against their respective governments to avenge the deaths of millions of their comrades. Hummel was also portrayed by Ed Harris, who would later voice Jason Hudson from Call of Duty: Black Ops.