Gretchen Ketola (Earth-5875)

"Give her credit: Gretchen was as tough a fucking Marine as you ever saw."

- - Kojo "Romeo" Agu to Taylor Miles

Lance Corporal Gretchen Ketola (Ret.) is a retired member of the UNSC Marine Corps and Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. She is married to the fellow retired ODST Taylor "Dutch" Miles.

Biography
From 2550 to 2551, Gretchen Ketola served in the same squad as Taylor "Dutch" Miles and Kojo "Romeo" Agu, and eventually developed a serious romantic relationship with Miles. The two later married in a disclosed ceremony in Castellaneta. An avid fighter, Gretchen was, alongside Dutch and Romeo, the only survivors of the original squad's formation, and she enjoyed the battlefield, to the point she laughed while killing Covenant and Insurrectionists. However, her career ended when she stepped on an Insurrectionist landmine, blowing off her left leg, which had to be substituted by a prosthetic.

As the Battle of Ariel waged on in January 2552, Ketola remained confined in a hospital duo to her injuries. From there, she sent a video message to Dutch. Despite her wishes to return to the UNSC Marine Corps, the doctors who performed her surgery predicted she would remain in non-combat roles for the rest of her life, which led to her unwilling retirement in the same year. This led to her suffering a huge depression, and Miles attempted to comfort her all the while he kept battling. After the death of Dutch's Alpha-Nine squadmate William Lawton during the Draco III Rebellion in January 2554, he retired in order to be alongside Gretchen and take care of her. For the next years, the two had a child, who they named Romeo William to homage Agu and Lawton, and kept contact with Edward Buck and Veronica Dare, who frequently visited them at their home on Mars.