According to official records, Meryl Silverburgh was the daughter of Roy Campbell's younger brother, Matt Campbell. However, more recent evidence showed that Meryl was born as the result of an affair between Roy Campbell and his brother's wife. When Meryl was young, Matt Campbell was killed in action during the Gulf War. After that, she took on her mother's maiden name, Silverburgh.
Raised in a house of military traditions, Meryl trained herself throughout her childhood in the arts of soldiery. She admired the FOXHOUND unit, viewing the days when her uncle and Solid Snake were members in the unit’s heyday, and wears a paint tattoo of the unit's 1990s logo on her left shoulder. She joined the armed forces after graduating high school and received extensive psychotherapy to prevent any attraction to the opposite sex. Despite this, she later fell in love with Solid Snake during the Shadow Moses Incident.
Meryl Silverburgh was the commanding officer of Rat Patrol Team 01 of the CID. Prior to her inauguration as commander, Meryl was a well-known career soldier due to her involvement in the Shadow Moses Incident, where she worked alongside legendary mercenary Solid Snake. She was thought to be the niece of former FOXHOUND commander Roy Campbell but was later discovered to actually be his daughter.
