Chester Phillips

"General Patton has said that wars are fought with weapons, but they are won by men. We are going to win this war because we have the best men. And because they are going to get better. Much better. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an Allied effort made up of the best minds in the free world. Our goal is to create the best army in history. But every army starts with one man. At the end of this week, we will choose that man. He will be the first in a new breed of super-soldiers. And they will personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of Hell."

- Chester Phillips

Chester Phillips was a Colonel of the U.S. Army, the first and only director of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, Steve Rogers' commanding officer, and one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Training Rogers to be Captain America
Colonel Chester Phillips was the officer in command of the secret project in the Strategic Scientific Reserve aimed to create a series of super soldiers for the US Army. He was the chief of the training camp in which the candidates were trained. The scientist in charge of the project, Abraham Erskine, presented him with a potential candidate, Steve Rogers, but Rogers' frail physique and numerous health problems led Phillips to believe that Rogers was unsuitable, at one point suggesting Gilmore Hodge, a physically superior soldier but also a disagreeable showboat. To prove his own theory correct, Phillips threw a fake grenade at the soldiers, but Rogers was the one who attempted to shield the blast with his own body while the other soldiers, including Hodge, took cover. Phillips reluctantly acquiesced.

Rogers was transformed successfully by Erskine's serum, but Erskine was killed by a HYDRA agent named Heinz Kruger. Phillips decided to leave the untrained Rogers behind and to continue the war without him, disappointed that only one super soldier was created. Months later, several companies of men from the 107th Infantry disappeared behind enemy lines, while Rogers was in the area as part of a USO tour. Upon discovering that one of the missing soldiers was his best friend, Bucky Barnes, Rogers pleaded with Col. Phillips to stage a rescue attempt. Phillips, though regretful for his soldiers' fate, refused, planning to bomb the facility instead of risking more American lives. A frustrated Rogers defied Phillips' order and was successful in rescuing the men alone. Phillips allowed him to work in the field, and entrusted him with a special elite commando force, rather than punishing him.

Battle in the Valkyrie
After Arnim Zola was captured, Phillips successfully interrogated him and located Johann Schmidt's last secret HYDRA base. While Captain America distracted the enemy, Phillips himself led the assault on the base, defeating a large number of HYDRA agents. Eventually, he helped Rogers in reaching the Red Skull's experimental plane riding Schmidt's special car, ending on the edge of a ravine and seeing the plane flying away with Rogers and the Skull aboard. His last words to Rogers were "I'm not kissing you" after Rogers kissed Peggy Carter goodbye. Later on, when Rogers relayed the news to Carter over the radio from Schmidt's plane that he was going to sacrifice himself to destroy Schmidt's weapons of mass destruction by crashing the plane into the Arctic, Phillips listened to Rogers' final conversation. When the radio went blank, Phillips, visibly saddened at his friend and comrade's apparent demise, walked away, and later handed Rogers' file to Peggy Carter.

After the War
In 1946, Phillips and Howard Stark chose Peggy Carter to run S.H.I.E.L.D. after her successful completion of the Zodiac assignment.

Character Traits
Chester Phillips was an old fashioned soldier, a gruff and iron-forged man who firmly believed in classical war values. He's contrary to Abraham Erskine's choice for his Super Soldier Serum test subject, since he was used to training "real" combatants, and didn't see the value of a small and skinny man such as Rogers.

Phillips was a good strategist and a trained soldier, and, despite his rank, he still took part in on-field missions, using canonical firearms.

Allies

 * Franklin D. Roosevelt - Commander-in-Chief
 * Strategic Scientific Reserve
 * Abraham Erskine † - Subordinate
 * Howling Commandos - Subordinates
 * Steve Rogers
 * Bucky Barnes
 * Peggy Carter
 * Gabe Jones
 * Jim Morita †
 * James Montgomery Falsworth †
 * Jacques Dernier
 * S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * Howard Stark
 * Peggy Carter

Enemies

 * HYDRA
 * Johann Schmidt/Red Skull
 * Arnim Zola †
 * Heinz Kruger †

Trivia

 * In the comics, Phillps chose Steve Rogers personally for being the Super Soldier test subject, while General Saunders was contrary. In the movie, Phillips fills Saunders role as he opposes the choice until being convinced otherwise.