: my mistake, the focus here was on those Spartans still being around and being
: the Chief's friends, you're right, that was never even hinted at (and to
: be clear the stuff in Halo 3 was only a hint, I'm not saying they really
: explained it)

We're forgetting all the NPC dialogue in H4 referring to Kelly, Fred and Linda. Plus the Linda cryo Easter egg in CEA, and Reach, I mean Jorge and the audio logs about Red Team.