History Main / DrillSergeantnasty

[[caption-width-right:350:[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall You call this a trope entry, maggot!?]]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:[[LeaningOnTheFourthWall You call this a trope entry, maggot?!]]]]

* An episode of the ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' TV series featured the main characters living next door to a retired Drill Sergeant Nasty, who in his post-army life has become obsessed with cultivating the perfect garden. He gets his comeuppance when he is [[spoiler:turned into a lawn ornament]] at the end.

* Downplayed with Keith Shadis in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', who spares victims of Titan attacks from this routine. An observer comments that the point of this trope is to break recruits down so they can be built back up into soldiers, so heaping abuse on those who have already been [[BreakTheCutie broken]] would be [[KickTheDog pointless cruelty]]. Later, he's also willing to consider that Eren's problem may be faulty equipment, rather than incompetence. [[spoiler: In fact, it's later revealed that Keith himself was the one who sabotaged Eren's equipment as he was secretly a friend of his parents and [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold wanted to stop him from throwing his life away]] before seeing how determined he was.]] It is, however, noted that training is exceptionally unforgiving and instructors regularly do things like cut safety lines to gauge a recruit's reaction. Those killed during training are written off as having never had a chance to stand against the Titans anyway.

!!DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY TROPES, MAGGOT:

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ozOX9l7M8 RISE AND SHINE MAGGOTS!]] YOU AREN'T WORTHY OF CALLING YOURSELVES TROPERS UNTIL I'M THROUGH WITH YOU!

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83ozOX9l7M8 RISE AND SHINE, MAGGOTS!]] YOU AREN'T WORTHY OF CALLING YOURSELVES TROPERS UNTIL I'M THROUGH WITH YOU!

In something of an ironic twist, the popularity of this character has impacted real military training. Recruits often enter with at least a passing familiarity with the trope and don't take it (or the instructor) seriously. However, such an attitude is likely to earn such recruits a lot of extra PT, screams in their face, and a very harsh reminder of why it's not a good idea to diss your superiors in the military. Drill instructors, drill sergeants, sergeant majors, etc. have to go through quite a bit of training of their own to get where they are, as well as having good records of service in whatever military branch they serve in. Plus, military or otherwise, making someone mad at you who knows how to kick your ass seven ways to Sunday is not very smart.

This often spills into works that depict normal life in the military, more often than not, a higher ranking officer or NCO will randomly scream at the low private and punish him with push-ups or a random exercise. This tactic[[note]]known as getting smoked ("''beasted''", in British Army slang)[[/note]] is rare nowadays, as most of the US Armed Forces branches have banned this practice outside basic training and the Officer/NCO themselves would get a far worse punishment for having ordered the punishment, but it still happens.

* Before we continue on, it should be noted that it is the ''job'' of drill sergeants to be this way. Why? Because it will make you remember your training, which in turn will save your life once bullets start flying. A soldier that does twenty years of service may not remember what he did all the time (especially if he never saw combat). But he will definitely remember his time in basic training if he had even a halfway-decent drill sergeant. It's also worth mentioning that as harsh as they can be, real drill sergeants do [[EveryoneHasStandards have lines they won't cross]]. They will rarely strike recruits and are expected to only exercise as much harshness as necessary to do their work. They are also trained to recognize when recruits simply aren't suited to military life for whatever reason and act accordingly, either getting them help or getting them medically discharged so that men under their command don't end up like [[Film/FullMetalJacket Private Pyle]] with R Le Ermey even stating that if he'd been anywhere near as bad in real life as in the film, he'd have been court martialled almost instantly.

* One appears in [[NebulousEvilOrganization Pyramid]] training camp that Royal infiltrates in ''ComicBook/AstroCity: The Dark Age''. He even sports a Smokey the Bear hat.

A very specific example of TheNeidermeyer that, unlike that trope, will seldom lead his men into actual combat, because his job is to train them, then send them on to their next assignment. Compare SergeantRock, the guy who leads them once Drill Sergeant Nasty is done training them.

* According to legend, one of the Chinese Emperors instructed a general (Sun Tzu himself according to some sources) to demonstrate his skill by teaching the imperial concubines to drill like soldiers. When the concubines didn't take the general seriously, he followed the normal Chinese boot camp procedure and killed several of them, and suddenly the concubines were performing drill with absolute precision...

* Before we continue on, it should be noted that it is the ''job'' of drill sergeants to be this way. Why? Because it will make you remember your training, which in turn will save your life once bullets start flying. A soldier that does twenty years of service may not remember what he did all the time (especially if he never saw combat). But he will definitely remember his time in basic training if he had even a halfway-decent drill sergeant. It's also worth mentioning that as harsh as they can be, real drill sergeants do [[EveryoneHasStandards have lines they won't cross]]. They will rarely strike recruits and are expected to only exercise as much harshness as necessary to do their work. They are also trained to recognize when recruits simply aren't suited to military life for whatever reason and act accordingly, either getting them help or getting them medically discharged so that men under their command don't end up like [[Film/FullMetalJacket Private Pyle]].

* Before we continue on, it should be noted that it is the ''job'' of drill sergeants to be this way. Why? Because it will make you remember your training, which in turn will save your life once bullets start flying. A soldier that does twenty years of service may not remember what he did all the time (especially if he never saw combat). But he will definitely remember his time in basic training if he had even a halfway-decent drill sergeant.

* Sergeant Kung Boo of King Boo's army in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' fanfic ''Fanfic/CanABooBeFriendsWithAHuman?'' Like practically all other sergeants, he has NoIndoorVoice and believes in working his troops very hard. He very much respects [[AFatherToHisMen Captain Boomerang]] though.

* A minion in [[VideoGame/HearthstoneHeroesOfWarcraft Hearthstone]], who pushes your other minions into fighting harder (read: gives a minion +2 attack for a turn). Its quotes are based on Dives.

* An early episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' guest-stars a trainer like this, which pisses Ash off--until he sees that the trainer [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold really does care for his 'mons]].

* Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from the film ''Film/FullMetalJacket'' is the probable TropeCodifier, played famously by Creator/RLeeErmey, a retired Marine staff sergeant[[note]]He was given an honorary promotion to gunnery sergeant in 2002 for his film work.[[/note]] and drill instructor. He's also the UnbuiltTrope, as Hartman is a demonstrable ''failure'' as a drill instructor: he entirely fails to notice that one of his recruits, whom he has specifically singled out for the worst of his abuse, is undergoing an obvious mental breakdown until it is too late, and then [[spoiler:[[TooDumbToLive gets himself killed in a very stupid manner]] by trying to ''further abuse and provoke'' the visibly twitching recruit fondling the loaded rifle]]... instead of simply turning around and leaving to fetch the [=MPs=] before the crazy man with the gun noticed that he was there. Though he's typecast as this role, Ermey himself once remarked that [[ArtisticLicenseMilitary Hartman's behavior would've gotten a real-life drill instructor relieved on the spot]], if not court-martialed.

* The codifier may well be "The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hasford. This novel was the basis for ''Film/FullMetalJacket''. Sargent Gerheim had people getting private beatings and drinking piss as punishments for minor things. This guy is so twisted, he congratulates Private Pyle when he shoots him.

This [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LdrsLA4VHM UK advert]] for Typhoo tea features a family hiring a Drill Sergeant Nasty one morning to see if his strictness is better than a cup of tea.

** The trope is deconstructed in multiple ways, mostly through the fact it's a well-known fact in-universe and out that the commissars don't always succeed at their job, and tend to attract a ''lot'' of friendly fire due to their reliance on bullying and fear tactics. Across various editions, rules have been presented for commissarial "discipline" to backfire fatally, and during their short-lived stint as an independent army, the Catachan Jungle Fighters[[note]]an Astra Militarium (originally Imperial Guard) variant army themed around American GI from the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar[[/note]] had a unique rule where you had to roll for each commissar in the army to see if the Catachans murdered them preemptively rather than deal with them. Even the ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novels hang a deconstructive lampshade, with the titular protagonist noting that commissars who act this way tend to quickly die "heroic deaths" in ''very'' suspicious circumstances.

His job is simple -- turn the bunch of maggot recruits that are the regulars into lean, mean fighting machines. The more you hate him, the more you will learn! So he gives you TrainingFromHell and often seems to revel in it. In a way, he's the military trainee's equivalent of a MeanBoss, but there's seldom any other type.

The only training method that Drill Sergeant Nasty knows is TheSpartanWay. [[NoIndoorVoice He yells]]. [[ClusterFBomb He carpet bombs your ears]]. He makes you [[ToothbrushFloorScrubbing scrub floors with toothbrushes]]. He will make you [[PhysicalFitnessPunishment drop down and give him 20, 50, or whatever arbitrary number he comes up with]]. He tends to use SoundOff in drills a lot. Eventually, you'll hate his guts, [[ZeroApprovalGambit which is usually exactly how he wants you to feel.]] He is usually played by Creator/RLeeErmey (who actually was a [[SemperFi Marine drill instructor]] for two years) or a ScaryBlackMan (see: Louis Gossett, Jr.).

On kids' TV, this same character is a gym teacher, coach, or another authority figure, but not necessarily a SadistTeacher. Often a former drill instructor who has trouble hanging up the chevrons (the fact that the Presidential Fitness Test, which was used as the benchmark for fitness in U.S. schools from 1956 to 2013, [[https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test was primarily a milestone of fitness for the military]] might have contributed to this stereotype).

The episode will often imply that Drill Sergeant Nasty is [[MiseryBuildsCharacter right]]: that, abrasive though he may be, everything he does is [[StealthMentor for your own good]] and everyone will come out the better for it (or at least, better able to survive [[WarIsHell Hell]]). Of course, in the film ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', the TropeCodifier drives one of the recruits into a mental breakdown that results in [[MurderSuicide his murder and the recruit's suicide]], an outcome that you almost [[UnbuiltTrope never see]] in any other examples.

He will often address those under his command as "[[PitifulWorms maggots]]" or "[[GenderedInsult ladies]]", or any other [[SirSwearsALot insults he can think of]] to [[InspirationalInsult motivate the people under him]]. He may also [[TheNicknamer dish out (often derogatory) nicknames.]]

In something of an ironic twist, the popularity of this character has impacted real military training. Recruits often enter with at least a passing familiarity with the trope and don't take it (or the instructor) seriously.

* Much like ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu'', ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'' goes whole-hog on this one in the short story and OVA episode "How to Defeat a Kind Enemy" by having Luhy Distone quote ''Film/FullMetalJacket'' and even don Creator/RLeeErmey's trademark HatOfAuthority as she trains Nyarko to become a MagicalGirl. Of course, just like Hartman, the training [[GoneHorriblyWrong goes horribly wrong]] and results in Nyarko going from CuteAndPsycho to outright AxeCrazy, when the original intent was to make her ''less'' violent.

** [[LightNovel/FullMetalPanic Melissa Mao]] takes care of this role in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsJudgment'' and ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsW'', going so far as to replace ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Bright Noa]]'' with her own slap (at least, on Calvina's route).

* The Phys Ed teacher in ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana''. Subverted: not only does his attempt to break Shana fail miserably, she ends up breaking ''him''.