"I thought you'd be taller."

: Like, besides Spartan Ops?

: I think she was in the background at some point during a cutscene?

Oh, here's the fun part.
The whole ground operation to clear a path for the UNSC Infinity was a Spartan operation, right? Sarah Palmer should have been the one in charge, but it was Del Rio who was calling the shots and denying recon data to the Chief.

That's right. 343i had to work extra hard to make Del Rio into an incompetent moron whose replacement the fans would cheer, but Palmer comes by it naturally.