Mike Yamada was a male human combat instructor at the largest Systems Alliance Military training camp on Shanxi, an industrial human colony world and the site of one of the most brutal battles of the First Contact War. Yamada served the Systems Alliance as an N7 commando for many years, fighting against rebels and warlords in Africa as a member of the Coalition for the Advancement of South African Interests and the turians during the First Contact War. After the First Contact War, Yamada retired from active service and became an advanced hand-to-hand combat instructor at the Systems Alliance Military training base on Shanxi, where he taught Shepard during his initial basic training. Shepard was the only cadet to successfully defeat Yamada in hand-to-hand combat, and in reward, Yamada promoted him to the next tier of basic training several months before the rest of the class. After his retirement, he died at the hands of the notorious turian mass-murderer Kymir Jhoeli.