Jack Bauer is a fictional character played by Kiefer Sutherland as part of the television series, 24.
Biography
Bauer graduated with a Bachelor's degree in English literature from UCLA, and a Master's degree in Criminology and Law from UC Berkeley.
He is a former Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team member, and also a former member of the US Army's elite Delta Force. Apparently, Bauer also did fieldwork for the Central Intelligence Agency before being seconded to its domestic branch, the Counter Terrorist Unit.
He previously worked as the Director of Field Operations for the fictional Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles. His latest completed mission was stopping a nationwide biological attack on the United States masterminded by former MI6 agent Steven Saunders.
Before that, Bauer held the position of CTU Los Angeles Director during the attempted assassination of President (then Senator) David Palmer. During that day Bauer's wife Teri, and daughter Kim, were kidnapped by Victor Drazen, a man Bauer thought he had killed in a covert mission called Operation Nightfall in Kosovo years earlier. Bauer's colleague/former love interest Nina Myers (who turned out to be a traitor) killed Teri Bauer before being arrested. Jack was so distraught over Teri's death that he resigned as CTU Los Angeles Director and became an inactive CTU agent.
Eighteen months later, Bauer was called back to duty by the National Security Agency (NSA) to help CTU stop a terrorist group known as Second Wave from detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Bauer initially refused, but eventually agreed to take part in the operation to stop the bomb.
After the incidents depicted in Season 2, Jack had been appointed Director of Field Operations by new CTU Los Angeles Director Tony Almeida.
However, after Tony's removal from CTU three years later, Jack was forced to leave the institution and became employed by the Department of Defense. Bauer became involved with the daughter of the Secretary of Defense and his boss, Audrey Raines, and it was apparently a serious relationship.
Character
Jack Bauer has been described by some as an uncompromising patriot of the United States of America, although questions arise regularly on the subject of how far he is willing to go in order to save civilian lives, and his political and ethical perspectives are never really revealed. His patriotism is almost always questioned and has in fact never been confirmed: his motives are usually concealed, whether from family, friends or co-workers.
Bauer has devoted his life to his job, which he refers to only as his job, although his actions match those of an anarchist hero who cares neither for regulation nor laws. He can be overwhelmingly convincing in the line of duty, and although he is trusted by those who know him personally, his chaotic nature tends to earn him some disgrace amongst those he is forced to betray. For example, in one covert operation (that was in fact concealed from the President himself, who was not too happy about it), Bauer earned the trust of a South American druglord by using heroin regularly, thus becoming an addict. He himself put it, in a bitter speech about how tired he was of being on the good guys' side, "I had to give them my soul".
Jack has routinely put his own life on the line, as well as the lives of those close to him, in order to serve the common good. Notably, he was faced with a situation where a terrorist threatening to release a devastating biological weapon if Jack did not execute his own boss, Ryan Chappelle. Once it was confirmed that the terrorist was not bluffing, Jack killed Chappelle with a bullet to the head. Jack has volunteered for suicide missions several times in order to protect others or to fulfill his objectives.
Jack is simultaneously hated and respected by his enemies. He sometimes seems to live a life that has no personal purpose, only to serve as a soldier. As he said to Chase Edmunds, his co-worker in field operations, who was having a romantic relationship with Jack's daughter; "You can not keep this job and lead a normal life at the same time!", as Jack shouted out of fear that his daughter's life might be ruined by the job, as his was.
He has loved and lost, although mostly lost. Since the death of his wife by his closest associate, Jack has shown little care for his own life and rarely seems to see himself as a valuable instrument of CTU of other value than graceful sacrifice, although nothing directly contradicts that he does.
Through the years of his good service, Jack becomes a semi-personal friend of the fictional President of the United States (and the first African-American one, in fact), David Palmer, largely due to Jack having saved his life more than once. A very descriptive factor of their relationship is that the President refers to him as Jack, while Jack addresses the President solely and professionally as "Mr. President." Palmer, however, felt close enough to Jack that he was one of the first people to learn Palmer would not be seeking re-election. Palmer told Jack he hoped they could become better friends when he was a private citizen again.
