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Jack Bauer is a heroic character played by Kiefer Sutherland as part of the television series, 24. Bauer's job is to protect the United States and its people from terrorist attacks in any way he possibly can.

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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. He previously worked as the Director of Field Operations for the Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles. His latest 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.

During the second day of the series, 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.

By day three, Jack had returned as Director of Field Ops at CTU. Tony Almeida held Jack's old position of CTU Director during that day.

However, after Tony's removal from CTU, Jack was forced to leave the institution and became employed by the Department of Defense before the start of day four.

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.

He 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 conceiled from the President himself, who was not too happy about it), he earned the trust of a South American druglord by using heroin regularly, thus becoming an addict. He himself put it, in a bitter speach about how tired he was of being on the good guys' side, "I had to give them my soul".

Although hated, he is 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 his co-worker in field operations, who was having a romantic relationship with his daughter; "You can not keep this job and lead a normal life at the same time!", as he 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, he 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, he became a semi-personal friend of the fictional President of the United States (and the first African-American one, in fact), David Palmer. 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".

• 24 (television)