History Headscratchers / FullMetalJacket

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** To "short-dick," means the same as "short-change." If he motivates Pyle to get fit, Pyle will lose weight, resulting in less food for the cannibals in the Congo to eat when they devour Pvt. Pyle.

***** It's '''''extremely''''' unlikely he was drafted. Period. And you don't just get to leave Basic if you're overwhelmed or fail. You signed a contract, and once you set foot on the plane or bus headed for Parris Island, you can't leave until you complete Basic. This applies in both peace and wartime. It works the same in the Army, regardless of whether you enlisted or were drafted.\\

** No, throwing smoke grenades is still a good idea, even today. It's not a distraction. It's used for concealment. It's less effective when you have an enemy with numerous weapons trained on you and plenty of ammo, especially if he has machine guns, but it's still better than nothing and it's especially effective when you're facing an enemy with few weapons or very little ammo. The smoke conceals your movement. The enemy knows (or thinks) you're going to go through there and he might even fire into the smoke and hope to hit you, but the difference is, he doesn't know exactly where you are (like he does when there's no smoke), won't know if he hit you, and won't know if you've moved. You could pop somoke, then stay where you are and try to draw him out, shift positions to get a better view of his position, flank him or bypass his position, or advance. Smoke is a good thing. I'd rather inhale the stuff than have him have an unobstructed view of my movement.

*** I was reading on The Kubrick Corner and its section on the movie with essays like "Deconstructing Masculinity". And I believe some of them purported that Lawrence/Pyle was a reflection of Hartman's worst nightmare for training potential Marine grunts. Lawrence/Pyle was a slow, overweight, in-over-his-head, practically useless guy whose very image could take its toll on Hartman. Seeing him here could most likely bring Hartman's true inner rage out, and not his usual authoritarian facade. Some of the essays covering the movie on that website may agree with me in implying that Hartman was secretly losing his mind due to Lawrence/Pyle.

*** What makes you think DI Hartman had anything to do with the blanket party? Do you seriously think he put them up to it? Hell no. A blanket party happened when I was in Basic, and when my dad was too. It is just something that happens sometimes. Unfortunate, but most certainly not something that the DI's put together. They were all being punished for Leonard's mistakes, and they took it personally and attacked him. I seriously doubt DI Hartmen knew anything about it.

* I have been thinking about Hartman's mental state throughout the whole time Lawrence was under him. Asking all of you people out there, do any of you think Hartman was starting to secretly lose his mind over Lawrence while Lawrence was going cuckoo too?

** I agree, sorta. I mean I don't have a problem with obese people at all, they can do whatever they want, it's their life, they are not hurting anyone. But ""SERIOUSLY!"" He could not wait the whole 6 awake hours he had till he got to go to breakfast to get another doughnut? (He said he was hungry. Liar. He just loves sweets and wanted to have a snack) I don't really feel he deserves the sock beating that happens afterwards, but come one, show some mental fortitude dude. You're not supposed to have sweet snacks to munch on whenever you feel like in basic training, '''''DEAL WITH IT.'''''

** I agree, sorta. I mean I don't have a problem with obese people at all, they can do whatever they want, it's their life, they are not hurting anyone. But ""SERIOUSLY!"" He could not wait the whole 6 awake hours he had till he got to go to breakfast to get another doughnut? (He said he was hungry. Liar. He just loves sweets and wanted to have a snack) I don't really feel he deserves the sock beating that happens afterwards, but come one, show some mental fortitude dude. Your not supposed to have sweet snacks to much on whenever you feel like in basic training, """DEAL WITH IT."""

**** Still, that doesn’t mean that he did. I find it relatively likely that all the shit that happened to him, on top of being drafted, was what made him snap. If he'd volunteered, he would have been more likely to wash out conventionally. (Not sure how the draft worked in terms of washing out, but I would assume it would have been a lot harder to be allowed to leave if you were drafted than if you volunteered)

In peacetime, at any point in your first 12 months, you can request a "failure to adapt to military lifestyle", which counts as a General Discharge (neither honourable nor dishonourable), not an Honourable Discharge.

** To the original question, while verbal abuse is just Hartman doing his job, him setting Pyle up to be beaten by his fellow privates is decidedly less so. What exactly did Hartman try to achieve by it anyway? Making Pyle quit? If a couple of entries above are to be believed he would either be sent to another boot camp or couldn't quit at all. In this case Hartman put the guy through an incredibly humiliating experience either just to make him someone else's problem or just ForTheEvulz. If that was an attempt to make Pyle really get his act together, well, it worked. [[GoneHorriblyRight Too well.]] Hartman failed to consider that while not wanting to get another blanket party would make a guy to push himself to his absolute limits, enough to make it, it couldn't be good for his mental health, let alone bonding with other recruits. Besides, since he did not 'get rid' of Pyle, it means, ironically enough, that he actually ''failed'' at his job and it got him killed. [[PoorCommunicationsKills That and Joker not telling about signs of Pyle's mental breakdown to anyone but Cowboy and Cowboy not telling anyone else.]] To put it short, getting beaten down by a group of people ''will'' make you hate them and most of all the person you are smart enough to see being behind it. And you can't leave this group. And no one gets punished for it. Pyle's actions are pretty damn understandable.

** It happens often in training like that, this troper experiencing it first-hand even in the "milder" Army. I think him going insane is supposed to show the reality of life in training.

*** That's true. People go crazy based on their own timing. Being away from home for the first time (for many recruits) is stressful. Those who go to milder training (as pointed out above) only know how much their own situations suck. When I went to Boot Camp in 1987, we had our share of crazies, too. At that time, Marine Corps Boot Camp was very similar to what was shown in the movie, except that I never saw a senior drill instructor who was an E-7. All of them were E-5 or E-6. The senior drill instructor was usually the milder of the three or four assigned to the platoon. Only one of them was really known for hitting recruits and he was only temporarily assigned to my platoon, long enough to punch me in the head on one occasion, but he was best known for the time he butt-stroked a recruit right in the face. We started out with 84 recruits and ended up with 70, including a few who had been picked up from other platoons along the way. That means more than 14 original recruits were weeded out, either because of mental or physical problems, or they couldn't pass the training. We had one who refused to follow orders and two who desserted and we never saw them again. My point is, these were all volunteers in peace times. In fact, there was even a rule prohibiting recruits from taking weapons into the head (latrine/bathroom) for this very reason. Apparently, shooting yourself in the head while sitting on a toilet is appealing to depressed/crazy recruits.

** It's possible it's meant to show that Joker isn't cut out for military service. He handles that whole situation horribly. Instead of either grabbing the (unloaded) rifle and running to the [=MPs=], or even just running to the [=MPs=], he does... nothing, and two Marines die as direct a result.

** The thing I don't get is why nobody ever gives Joker any shit for how he behaves. He just kind of stands there and watches as Pyle loads individual bullets into a clip and then loads the clip and cocks the rifle and starts going through drills... I understand that he was panicked or whatever, but really, just screaming and running away would have been a better response. Maybe Hartman would have still stormed in and started berating Pyle, but then again maybe not; Hartman does seem genuinely surprised when Joker tells him that Pyle's weapon is loaded. If Joker had just immediately gotten out of there and warned everyone, maybe the MPs (or whatever, sorry, military noob here) would have been able to take Pyle out before he hurt anyone...