Sam Hanna (portrayed by LL Cool J) is a fictional character in the show NCIS: Los Angeles. He is a former U.S. Navy SEAL and a Senior NCIS Special Agent. He first appeared in the NCIS season six episode "Legend (Part I)". Background and characterization The son of Marine Colonel Raymond Hanna, Osama "Sam" Hanna attended a military school and excelled in football, playing wide receiver. Like the actor, Hanna is a native of New York City. Outside his job, Hanna has a varied range of interests, including boxing, origami, acting, vinyl records, and antique cars. He also tends to follow the latest health food and fitness fads. He suffers from coulrophobia (fear of clowns) and has a fear of maggots. Family Michelle is first introduced in the season 4 episode "Rude Awakenings". It is revealed that they fell in love when they worked together on a failed Joint Task Force mission to capture Isaak Sidorov, a Russian arms dealer. She had managed to successfully infiltrate Sidorov's organization as an assassin-for-hire under the alias of "Quinn" before Sidorov escaped and the mission was aborted. Military and NCIS career Prior to joining NCIS, Hanna served in the U.S. Navy, from which he retired with the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer (E-8), although this contradicts his service record as shown in the episode "Betrayal" which states that he left as a Chief Petty officer (E-7). When in uniform in the 20th episode of season 4, he is seen wearing the rank of a Senior Chief. He was a member of the Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) (formerly "Team Six") based in Dam Neck in Virginia. Despite his inability to swim when he first enlisted, he went on to have a distinguished career as a SEAL and various characters have referenced his "legendary" status within the SEAL community. Much of his career is vague due to the highly classified nature of most of his missions, although it has been mentioned that he served in Bosnia (Yugoslav Wars), Chad (Pan Sahel Initiative), Iraq and Afghanistan and was stationed at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado at some point. His area of expertise is the Middle East and he reads and speaks Arabic fluently and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Qur'an. He is also multilingual, having a working knowledge of Japanese, Persian, Danish, Hebrew, Korean, and Spanish. Due to his background in