"I
wanna be an airborne ranger...
I
wanna live a life of danger..."
— Beach Head
|
Beach Head is the code
name used by
G.I. Joe team Ranger, U.S.
Army Command
Sergeant Major Wayne R. Sneeden.
Born in Auburn, Alabama, Beach Head became a Ranger after joining the
Army.
He served at both the Ranger School and at the Covert Ops School in
Central
America before joining the G.I. Joe team in 1986. Beach Head is known
as
having a very cool head in the field, and seems to enjoy some of the
worst
the Army has to offer. It's not unusual to hear him quietly singing
country
music during tense operations. The one thing that makes Beach Head lose
his temper is what he sees as other people's incompetence and laziness.
Which is why he makes for one mean drill sergeant.
Beach Head's first mission on the Joe
team was
assisting Hawk during
the rescue of Snake-Eyes from Cobra Island.
The rescue was successful after
an off-shore battle with Cobra attack boats
and Cobra Eels. Following that
mission, Beach Head snuck onto a Russian airliner to foil hijackers,
along
with Flint and Lady
Jaye. Soon afterward, he was part of the first team
of Joes to enter Springfield before the invasion of that
Cobra-controlled
town, whose job was to knock out the enemy's power and communications.
Later Beach Head was part of a group advising Sierra Gordo's
counter-revolutionaries
in the fight against Cobra, where he once again found himself involved
in rescuing Snake-Eyes from Cobra's Terror-Drome. He was also one of
the
many Joes to be involved in the contruction of the third Pit
headquarters
in Utah. In the jungles of Southeast Asia, Beach Head and a small team
of Joes took part in a near-disastrous mission, which nearly cost them
their lives thanks to a treacherous CIA agent. Some time later, with a
large force of Joes, Beach Head participated in the Cobra Island civil
war. He served on the team until it was disbanded in 1994.
Beach Head became part of the
reinstated Joe team
in 2002, where he
acted as a drill sergeant for new recruits in addition to his usual
duties
as a Joe. After he rejoined the team, he helped stop Storm Shadow in
his attempt to assassinate Hawk and fought against terrorist Tyler
Wingfield.
Beach Head was later part of a convoy of vehicles escorting a group of
young children who turned out to be clones of the original Serpentor.
When
the revived Serpentor arrived to claim them with the forces of The Coil
to back him, Beach Head and several others were captured, and some of
the
team's new recruits were killed. Imprisoned on Cobra Island, the Joes
eventually
escaped and joined the battle against Serpentor's forces as the Joe
team
invaded the island. He later fought Destro's
new recruit, Wraith as the
mercenary freed Major Bludd and Scrap-Iron
from Blackwater Prison.
A
short time later, members of the Joe team fought Cobra forces that
were drawn into an attack on a train guarded by the Joes, believing
that
Destro was being held prisoner onboard. At the battle's end, Hawk was
shot in the back by
Cobra Commander
and
paralyzed. In Hawk's absence,
the Jugglers began to take control of the team to reign it in, if
not disband it altogether. Eventually, the team's roster was cut down
to only a dozen Joes, and Beach Head was one of many reassigned to
other units. After the remaining Joes stopped a plot by Cobra to
unleash
the weapon known as the Tempest, and defeated a new threat, the Red
Shadows, the military again disbanded the team. One year later, the Joe
team was reformed with a smaller roster of active members. Beach Head,
like most former Joes, is a reserve member of the new team. He was
called back to duty to stop a group of terrorists who had taken control
of a Cobra biological weapon facility in Manhattan. During the global conflict known as World War III, Beach Head battled Cobra forces in Bolivia.