Cooper

Private Cooper is a soldier under Harry Wells' command, and the only survivor of an attack by werewolves. He is the main protagonist of Dog Soldiers.

Biography
As part of a mission to try and join Special Ops, Cooper evades capture in North Wales for 22 hours before he is found and defeated by Captain Richard Ryan and his team. When Cooper refuses to carry out a direct order from Ryan to shoot a defenceless dog, Ryan has Cooper sent back to Harry Wells' squad.

Four weeks later, Wells' squad, including Cooper, are dropped in the Scottish Highlands as part of a supposed training exercise. That night, while the squad are camping, the mutilated corpse of a cow drops down into the camp from a nearby ledge. Cooper notices that the animal was mauled rather than gunned down, and the squad decides to find how the cow died in the morning.

Cooper and the squad follow the trail left by the dead cow, until they see a flare fired into the sky. Following it, the squad finds the ravaged remains of a Special Ops camp, with a traumatized and mortally wounded Captain Ryan as the only survivor. As dusk falls, the squad hears screams and howls and retreat into the woods, where they come under attack by a pack of werewolves. However, they are rescued by a passing Megan, and seek refuge in an abandoned, nearby cottage.

Cooper and the other soldiers at first plan to treat Wells' wounds, then leave the cottage, but when Megan's car is destroyed and the werewolves besiege the cottage, the soldiers are forced to stay and make a stand.

When the soldiers' ammunition begins to run out, Cooper and the others decide to try and escape in the family's land rover, but this ends up impossible. Cooper and the rapidly-recovering Wells interrogate Ryan, and are enraged to find that the squad was sent into the Highlands as bait to capture one of the werewolves for the Special Weapons Division. Ryan, who was infected when his camp was attacked the previous night, then transforms into a werewolf and escapes.

Cooper and Megan conclude that the werewolves are using the cottage barn as a base, and decide to blow it up to kill them. While they are planning the attack on the barn, Wells reveals to Cooper that he was also infected when a werewolf wounded him earlier, and will eventually transform into one. Cooper drives the Land Rover, with a gas tank and a trail of ignited petrol, into the barn, and escapes back to the cottage just as the barn explodes.

However, Megan then reveals that she convinced Cooper to destroy the barn so as to destroy the soldiers' only means of escape. She also reveals that she is part of the werewolf family, and has been supressing the transformation but finally gives in. Three werewolves then break into the cottage, one managing to corner Cooper in the bathroom. After escaping the bathroom, Wells and Cooper try to hide in the bedroom wardrobe, where they discover the bones of the family's previous victims. The werewolves then try to break into the wardrobe, forcing Wells and Cooper to shoot through the floor into the kitchen downstairs to escape.

As Wells begins to transform, he forces Cooper to take shelter in the cellar with Sam before the former blows up the cottage and the werewolves. Before Cooper can leave the cellar, he finds the hanged corpses of the family's victims, and is confronted by the werewolf Ryan. While Sam distracts Ryan, Cooper finds and uses a silver letter opener to stab Ryan and cripple his abilities long enough to shoot and kill him.

Cooper and Sam then leave the rubble remaining of the cottage and head off into the woods. A post-credits image of an Express Mail issue reveals that Cooper survived and reported the fate of his squad, with his photo being featured on the aforementioned newspaper's front page under the heading, 'WEREWOLVES ATE MY PLATOON!'. Photographs of the werewolves' attacks from when the family's camera's flash was used to stun them suggest said photos were also used as proof.

Personality
Cooper was a competent hand-to-hand combatant. Though he seemed more ambitious than the rest of Wells' squad, being disappointed after he failed Special Forces selection for a moral slight, he was also highly conscience-driven; displayed when he disobeyed Captain Ryan's direct order to shoot a dog under the justification that he could certainly kill a dog but wouldn't do so without good reason. He displayed a soft spot for dogs among animals; being immediately delighted upon finding Sam while scoping out an unfamiliar location and quickly befriending him, and yelling when Ryan shot his own dog before attacking the Ryan in rage and disgust.

Cooper admitted that he was afraid of spiders and women, and implied he held some dismay in heterosexual romantic relationships. He showed signs of attraction towards Megan during the night, and unlike some of the other soldiers, he always showed her patience and never snapped at her out of frustration despite the strain and circumstances around them. But when Cooper learned she was one of the werewolves and had tricked the squad into bringing about their own doom, Cooper disgustedly murmured, "Women. Same old shite." Suggesting a poor past experience with a female partner.

Cooper was understandably skeptical when told by Megan that the squad's inhuman enemy were literal werewolves, unlike Wetherspoon who accepted it off-the-bat as making sense, and Cooper made it clear he didn't care either way beyond practicality. Megan's prediction he'd believed it to be the truth came true after they saw Ryan transform, prompting Cooper to accept that the legendary creature was real and making him realise that the werewolf pack had to have human identities.

After Wells was injured, Cooper displayed impressive leadership skills and ability to keep his mind sound; fluidly taking command of the squad despite being of equal rank to Wells' other men, with which his fellow men were evidently copasetic as he met no challenge commanding them and keeping them in line. He also frequently displayed quick thinking in these regards.

Wells himself recognised and approved of Cooper's leadership abilities, telling Cooper the squad was his when Wells believed himself unlikely to survive the night. The only real sign of Cooper's inexperience compared to the Sarge was the sway of sentiment over him; shown when he was reluctant to face the possibility Wells was transforming into a werewolf, and when he argued briefly but intensely with Wells against letting the latter kill himself while Cooper took shelter.

Cooper and Sergeant Wells evidently had a closer bond than with the rest of the squad, verging on a surrogate father-and-son relationship - and both men already had very strong ties to the other squad-members, with Cooper himself commenting at one point that he gladly would've given his right arm for the men that had already died.

Trivia

 * In a deleted scene available on the Dog Soldiers DVD, Cooper shows photographs to Wells of himself and an (apparently-recent) girlfriend of his which were taken by Spoon, revealing that his girlfriend got drunk and left him at the pub after kissing another man, to Cooper's dismay.