User:Jaster1

Melanie Burke: NCIS Character

Melanie Danielle Burke was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her father, Raymond Burke, was a commercial airline pilot and former U.S. Navy fighter pilot. Her mother, Jaime Newman-Burke, was a social worker and Sunday school teacher. After Melanie graduated from high school, she went on to the University of Michigan. Upon graduating from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, she went on to the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, California. Soon after earning her Master of Divinity degree, Melanie was ordained in the American Baptist Churches USA and went on to serve as an associate pastor at a congregation in Grand Rapids. Three years later, she applied to become a chaplain in the United States Navy. After attending the Navy Chaplain School at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, Melanie was commissioned in the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps and assigned as a chaplain to the Naval Air Station North Island Chapel. She was later deployed as a staff chaplain aboard the Nimitz-class supercarrier USS Carl Vinson. After that, Melanie was posted to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. A little while after she was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, she was transferred to the Washington Navy Yard Chapel. Soon after, a C-130 transporting the bodies of U.S. Marines killed in Afghanistan crashed in a field in Virginia. Melanie was ordered to assist the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Major Case Response Team investigating the crash with reaching out to the families of the deceased.