The Soldier

"Real" name: Sergeant-Barrister Mister Jane Doe

"Men, George Washington never lost. Jesus never lost! Patton never lost! If winning's good enough for those war heroes, it's damn well good enough for us!"

Voiced by: Rick May (2007-2020)/Nolan North^note (English), Vicent Gil (Spanish), Patrick Béthune (French), Alexander Novikov (Russian), Crock Krumbiegel (German)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/main_menu_soldier.png

"If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!"

The Soldier is an absolutely insane army man-wannabe who talks like a cross between George C. Scott in Patton and R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, bringing Patriotic Fervor to up and through the roof and hating everything that he considers un-American. He wanted to "do his bit" in World War II, but was rejected from every service in the American military after being found too mentally unstable even for national service; so he self-financed a one-man rampage across Europe with the intention to kill "Nazis" and "Communists", and not stopping until 1949 when someone managed to track him down in Poland and convince him that the war had ended. Meet the Soldier!

The Soldier is an Offense character whose selling point is his versatility. With a considerable amount of health (200HP), 80% base speed alleviated by his ability to Rocket Jump with his powerful rocket launcher (making him the most mobile character in-game when used correctly), and good explosive damage thanks to the aforementioned rocket launcher, the Soldier will find a place in every team and thrives in the thick of battle. The Soldier's rocket launcher allows him to harass at long range and makes him deadly at mid-range. At close range, however, he can rely on a trusty shotgun, which he can then switch with a parachute, several backpacks to buff himself and his team, or boots that can either lessen rocket jump damage or increase his control in the air (with a Goomba Stomp as a bonus). His default melee weapon is a folding shovel, but it can be switched out to deal more damage at low health, increase speed at low health, buff ally movement speed, or inflict critical hits when rocket jumping.

He shared his class update alongside the Demoman, similar to the Sniper versus Spy update. The WAR! comic conclusively revealed that he was never in the Army (his personal Berserk Button), as well as the Soldier's lifestyle; the BLU Soldier lived in a shabby, windowless apartment filled with weapons and weapon magazines, ready to kill any visitor who wasn't a tomato soup salesman or a roast rib deliveryman. The RED Soldier once shared an apartment with Merasmus the Magician, an actual immortal wizard from Scotland, until Merasmus evicted his lodger for being lazy and stealing Merasmus' belongings.

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A-H

Achilles' Heel: While the Soldier doesn’t suffer from this nearly as much as the other classes, he still has some weaknesses.
- While his rocket launcher is incredibly powerful, much like the Demoman, he can hurt himself with it, and even blow himself up if he isn't careful. He also needs to inflict damage on himself to rocket jump; add fall damage into the mix, and it limits how many times he can rocket jump before blowing himself up (though the Gunboats and Mantreads can reduce self-blast damage).
- Scouts. A good Scout can easily avoid a Soldier's slow-moving rockets while raining fire on him with a Scattergun. The Soldier can use a shotgun to counteract this, but it isn't nearly as tough as the scattergun.
- Pyros. A Pyro's airblast can reflect Soldier's rockets, their primary method of damage, and send it right back at him, which can potentially kill himself or his teammates, especially if said rocket is a random crit. That said, good Soldiers have multiple ways to negate a Pyro's influence, such as shooting the ground with irregular timing to make reflects more difficult, ambushing Pyros via rocket jumping before they can react, or by simply using a shotgun and staying out of Flamethrower range.
Achievements in Ignorance: Soldier has built a functional rocket launcher (the fittingly-named Beggar's Bazooka) and an effective robot disguise out of garbage.
Adoring the Pests: Through reasons comprehensible only to him, he snuck back into Merasmus' home, hid a refrigerator full of spoiled sour cream in the yard, and attracted several rabid raccoons, prone to chewing on everything in their path. Even though one of them has Soldier's own arm as its meal of choice, he still seems to think it's cute.
Merasmus: Where did all these raccoons come from?
Soldier: They sniffed out all the sour cream I hid! They love the stuff. Don't you, Lieutenant Bites? Yeahhh, you do.
[Soldier holds "Lieutenant Bites" in his arms, scratching his head affectionately. The raccoon growls and digs its teeth into his arm. Several large, bloody gashes are already seeping out from the sleeve of his uniform. Merasmus stares on in shock]
Amazon Chaser: Zhanna is as tall as he is, just about as buff, and easily as strong as he is, if not stronger. She loves killing things and she throttles with her bare hands. Soldier just adores her.
American Eagle: He's an extremely patriotic American with an overall eagle motif, as many of his cosmetics are eagle-related and many of his lines reference the bird of prey's status as America's symbol. One cosmetic has a small bald eagle that perches on his shoulder, while another gives him an eagle's head.
Ammunition Backpack: Has a small backpack filled with rockets.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The description of the Stainless Pot, which Soldier wears on his head as an improvised helmet.
Protects cranium from bullets and shrapnel. Also heats soup.
Artistic License – History: If this post about Abraham Lincoln is part of his interior monologue, as opposed to being part of the genuinely weird world history of the TF2-verse ^note
Ascended Meme: In official Competitive modes, he has lines referencing fan nicknames for the different roles that Soldier plays in 6v6:
"Which one of us is Pocket?" (A Pocket Soldier is basically a "Bodyguard" for the Medic)
"Which one of us is Roamer?" (A Roamer Soldier is a Rocket-Jumping soldier who picks specific enemies)
"Mess with the Pocket, get a rocket!"
Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The Soldier's helmet is slightly too large for his head and covers his eyes. This detail hints at his two biggest traits: his obsession with war and his stupidity, and it's something that many of the Soldier's head cosmetics retain.
Awesome, but Impractical:
- In practice, any strategy heavily relying on the Market Gardener or the Mantreads isn't suited to deal with most situations and is a risky strategy for dealing with medium to large-sized groups. But it's still so satisfying and fun to come blasting out of nowhere and make an enemy go CRUNCH.
- The Beggar's Bazooka is a very strange rocket launcher that has much to recommend on paper once you figure out how it works: instead of providing a typical magazine's worth of rockets to fire out at your discretion, the Beggar's uniquely requires the player to charge up on rockets before instantly blasting them all out in rapid succession, giving the Soldier much greater burst potential, especially useful for aggressive ambushes. The overload "penalty" caused from loading more than 3 rockets at a time also allows for mid-air explosion jumping, making Soldier's sky-high mobility potential from Rocket Jumping even more ridiculous. However, on top of the inherent weakness of not having a rocket ready to fire on reflex (meaning he's less able to defend himself against aggressors), the Beggar's also comes with random inaccuracy, leaving the fate of its long-range viability to a dice roll. It may not matter so much if you feel like indiscriminately firing at enemy clusters from the sky, but it will hurt much more when dealing with stationary enemy turrets.
Ax-Crazy: Even compared to the insanity of the other Mercenaries, Soldier's level of brutality and obsession for killing things puts them all — besides maybe the Pyro — to shame. It's heavily implied that his deranged bloodlust was the main reason he got turned down by every branch of the U.S. military.
Bad "Bad Acting": When he's trying to coax Merasmus out of hiding.
"Oh hello, Merlin, the famous magician! Noooo, I have not seen Merasmus. What's that? Noooo, I can't think of anyone who'd want an autograph."
"Oh hello, Gundorf! Where's Blasbo Babbins? Oh there he is! Everyone's here! Labalos, Gimpy, Dumpy, Snoopy... um... Man, I wish Merasmus was around to see this magical turn of events!"
"Oh look, it's Houdini. What's that Houdini? You looking for a new best friend? Too bad there's no wizards around... get out here, Merasmus!"
"What's that, Merasmus's favorite actor, Burt Lancaster? You think people who hide are cowards? Wise words, Burt Lancaster. You've convinced all of us-damn it Merasmus, get out here!"
Badass Bandolier: Including two semi-cosmetic frag grenades. You can only use one of them in a suicidal self-explosion by taunting when you've got the Equalizer or Escape Plan equipped.
Badass Normal: Despite having been rejected from every branch of the military^*Though it is implied that the reason for his rejection wasn't because he was physically unfit, but because he was deemed bashit bonkers insane. and thus having no formal military training, the Soldier apparently went on a "Nazi killing spree" using entirely self-taught techniques. This quote sums it up:
"War is hell! My kind of hell!"
- Though it is heavily implied that most of the people he killed in his "campaign" through Germany and its neighbouring countries were just regular civilians that Soldier mistook for Nazis, so this is somewhat diminished...
Berserk Button: Do not call him a civilian. Even though it's true, he still goes absolutely apeshit if someone refers to him as that.
Blasphemous Boast: "If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!"
Boisterous Bruiser: He's ridiculously loud and rowdy at all times, and he'll usually respond to any situation with comically over-the-top violence.
Bond One-Liner: Many of his killing spree voice notes qualify. "Time to inform YOUR NEXT OF KIN!"
Boom in the Hand: His taunt kill has him pull out a grenade from is bandolier, raising it into the air, and letting it explode in his hand. This kills him and any nearby enemies.
Boots of Toughness: The Gunboats are quite impressive as they are military boots reinforced with bolted steel plates. They are also useful since they partially protect the Soldier from his own rocket jumping, allowing for a more dynamic playstyle in exchange for less firepower.
Boring, but Practical:
- The Shotgun, which most Soldiers forgo in favor of the utility or passive buffs that his other, non-weapon secondaries give. Carrying a Shotgun around lets the player easily finish off weakened enemies, allows for a Plan B when an enemy ambushes them while they're out of loaded rockets, and won't Crippling Overspecialize them out of dealing with Scouts and Pyros efficiently.
- The Pain Train (a melee weapon shared with Demoman) stands out among Soldier's other melee options — most of which have some exciting forms of damage or dynamic utility when pulled out — by being completely passive in nature: in exchange for taking 10% more damage from enemy bullets, Soldier gains an increased capture rate on objectives like payload carts and control points, putting him on par with the Scout. Objective capturing is a common-enough gameplay element to allow this benefit to be useful, and since you'll be mostly relying on your rocket launcher and secondary options anyway, the Pain Train might be worth keeping in your pocket if you feel you can risk taking slightly more damage from shotgun blasts or Heavy's minigun fire.
Book Dumb: The comics heavily imply that Soldier is too stupid to read, and his grasp on concepts such as history and basic governance are severely lacking as well. Some of this is due to his own inherently deranged mental state, the rest is probably the result of fifteen years of drinking lead-tainted water.
Bucket Helmet: The Stainless Pot and the Panisher hats are just kitchen pots, while the Crack Pot is a literal cracked garden pot.
Brainless Beauty: Of the himbo variety- the man is dumb as a post, and when we see him without his helmet in the comics, he's revealed to be pretty handsome despite sporting a fresh black eye. It's no wonder Zhanna fell for him almost immediately.
Brief Accent Imitation: One of his domination lines for the Sniper has him mimicking his Australian accent. He also imitates the Spy's French laugh when he dominates him.
Captain Obvious: In "Meet the Spy":
Administrator: Intruder Alert! RED Spy is in the base!
BLU Soldier: A RED SPY IS IN THE BASE?!
Administrator: Protect the Briefcase!
BLU Soldier: WE NEED TO PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE!
Carpet of Virility: The cover of "Blood in the Water" shows him wearing a spy catsuit partly zipped open in the front, and he has a pretty hairy chest.'
Catchphrase Insult: Has a tendency in-game to call people "Maggot" as everything from an insult to a casual form of address, thanks to his Drill Sergeant Nasty antics. The only time it isn't used disparagingly is when he attempts to befriend a rubber prop of a brain eating maggot, whom he apologies to for Insult Friendly Fire.
Character Catchphrase: "HUTTAH!", which he always shouts before breaking someone's neck. Judging by the Meet The Soldier short in which he utters it while charging a point, it is pronounced "Hutt-ah", with emphasis on the "a".
Charged Attack:
- The Cow Mangler's secondary-fire mode charges the laser-like launcher for three seconds before firing a large explosive blast at enemies.
- Soldier also has the Beggar's Bazooka, which can be loaded with multiple rockets to be unleashed in rapid succession. (More than three will cause an explosion each time, but it can be upgraded to fire considerably more in Mann Vs. Machine).
Charge Meter: The Soldier's three bugle weapons all charge by dealing damage, and provide bonuses to the Soldier and nearby allies when used. One grants extra damage, another reduces damage taken, and the third heals based on damage done (and gives a speed boost).
Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Dominating Spies will have the Soldier taunt them while generally mentioning their French nationality. One calls the Spy a "rifle-dropping coward", another has him say, "Your white flag does not stop American bullets". Think not of how the latter would be a war crime, and remember that the Soldier isn't exactly sane.
- One of his Achievements is "Geneva Contravention", which literally makes you kill 3 unarmed people. Granted, he's not exactly in the army.
Chekhov's Gun: His robot Halloween outfit turns out to be useful in fooling Gray Mann's robots, at least until Gray unveiled the robot Engineer.
Chuunibyou: The Soldiers' profile indicates this trope: where he was rejected from every American Military Branch when he wanted to go and fight the Nazis. So he bought himself a ticket to Europe where he wandered around trying to locate Poland and eventually going on a Killing-Spree and awarding himself Medals of valor that he had designed and gave to himself; only stopping in 1949 when he finally learned that WWII had ended.
Cigar Chomper: Seen smoking a cigar in the Mann vs. Machine trailer, and he has one as a cosmetic item. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. And sometimes a cigar is a foul concoction hand-rolled from garbage bins.
Cloudcuckoolander: Whatever's in Soldier's head would probably not be reciprocated by too many people. For instance, his historical accounts are rather off from what you should know, though other background material in Team Fortress 2 frequently states odd history such as that as well. He also keeps severed heads of his enemies to line up and act Drill Sergeant Nasty to.
- In "Expiration Date", everything out of his mouth is pure Cloud Cuckooland craziness that gives you some idea of how he would have been used if the series had come to fruition.
  Spy: This... is a bucket. [presents bucket full of "dying wishes"]
  Soldier: Dear God.
  Spy: There's more.
  Soldier: [astonished] No...!
  
  Soldier: You did not read [my dying wish]!
  Spy: [sigh] Does it say you want the buc-?
  Soldier: Yes!
Colonel Kilgore: His authority is self-imposed (and he's the only one who treats it seriously), but otherwise he fits the trope, what with his obsession with war, killing, explosions, and "military machoism".
Commissar Cap: Fitting his war theme, one of his hat cosmetics is an M. Bison-like hat called the Team Captain, which he shares with Heavy and Medic.
Companion Cube:
- His enemies' severed heads, whom he treats like a squad of fresh conscripts in Meet the Soldier.
- Also the Larval Lid, a Halloween-restricted hat in the form of a giant botfly maggot (which, according to its texture file, is just a latex costume piece) "growing" from his head. When equipped, it can trigger a special voice line of Soldier conversing with his "brain maggot" buddy.
- In the Dr. Grordbort's Crash Landing comic, he's shown to have three army men friends who sit with him around a campfire and smoke together; Salty Pete, Iron Eye, and Pepper Pot Pete. The scene is then shown at a different angle, revealing that they're just wooden cutouts with cigars stuck to their mouths.
Crazy Enough to Work: With the Mann Vs. Machine update, he came up with the idea of creating a decoy facility for the robots to attack. And it worked because the robots were so stupid.
Soldier: "If there's one thing we can do that these machines cannot, it is this: we can lie. We will lie to them on the beaches! We will lie to them in the beach parking lot! We may even lie to them on non-beach-related property! About the quality of our munitions! About the strength of our will! We will even lie about lying! That is how deep this rabbit hole goes! But the most important lie we will tell is this: Where the Mann Co. facilities are!"
- He then proceeded to infiltrate the robots' meetings by wearing his terrible robot Halloween costume as a disguise. It worked until Gray Mann got suspicious and built a smarter robot (patterned after the Engineer).
Crazy Homeless People: According to the comics, the RED Soldier now lives in a box and there's nothing to suggest the BLU Soldier isn't at best a squatter or traveling deviant himself.
- The Pyromania update gave Soldier a set called the Dumpster Diver, including a helmet lined with tinfoil.
Crazy Jealous Guy: In the "Unhappy Returns" comic, Jane tracks down Merasmus to Tom Jones' house, murdering the singer in cold blood when he finds out Tom Jones is Merasmus' new roommate. When Merasmus asks why, Jane says:
"I am fully within my legal rights as your old roommate to kill your stupid new roommate! (...) I was sad, you were happy! So I killed Tom Jones. (...) The heart makes its own rules, Merasmus."
Crazy-Prepared: Apparently, he always knew a robot attack would happen, and has taken measures to prepare for this. Then again, one of these measures was staring down a toaster for several months to "get inside its mind", so effectiveness is debatable.
Crazy Survivalist: The WAR! comic shows the BLU Soldier's state of living. His first reaction to hearing a visitor is to attempt to shoot them through the door, then try to lure them close so that he can try to Neck Snap his guest through the custom-built holes in his door, before eventually undoing his myriad of locks and allowing his guest in... just so that he has a clear shot from behind his table. Inside isn't much better, either: tins of canned soup are everywhere, boxes of the stuff litter his desk, it looks like he's done little to clean, he has a massive stack of magazines for "Guns and Haircuts", and the state of his room is generally dilapidated, with little in the way of decorations besides an American flag on his desk and what appears to be a strategic map of Germany.
Creepy Souvenir: Has a collection of severed heads taken from the BLU team (which he treats like his recruits in his Meet the Team video), and in the comics, his idea of an engagement present to Zhanna is a necklace of severed ears. Happily for Soldier, though, she's just as crazy as he is.
Crutch Character: Or weapons in this case. The Black Box ^note and the Liberty Launcher ^note are very helpful for new players but the one less rocket of the Black Box and the damage penalty of the Liberty Launcher severely hinder the weapon’s combat effectiveness in the hands of skilled players.
The Cuckoolander Was Right: In Expiration Date, his immediate conclusion upon seeing tumors in the bread is that it means they can't teleport bread anymore. Though his logic isn't exactly sound, the conclusion he jumps to is actually exactly right.
Death from Above: Rocket jumping allows the Soldier to fly to great heights from which he can rain down rockets upon his enemies. The Gunboats greatly reduce the self-damage taken from rocket jumping, allowing Soldiers to perform bombing runs with high frequency, while the Mantreads let him actually land on enemies to damage them. There's an achievement for killing a number of players from above.
- The Market Gardener lets him deliver this with even more efficiency (through a tight timing window), as it delivers a guaranteed 195-damage crit if he strikes with it while rocket jumping.
- And now, with the Beggar's Bazooka, Gunboats, and some creativity, he can act as a living airstrike.
- As of the Love and War update, two new weapons have been added for him; A parachute that allows gliding and a rocket launcher literally called "The Air Strike." The latter allows rapid rocket fire from midair.
Determinator: No matter how he thinks and acts, the Soldier will NOT give up easily:
"A winner knows when to fight and when not to fight! Answer: Never! Stop! Fighting!"
Diminishing Returns for Balance: Downplayed. While in most cases, a single-class team will expose themselves to a certain type of weakness (all-Scouts are vulnerable to Sentry Guns, all-Heavies to Spies & Snipers, all-Snipers/Spies just plain won't work), an all-Soldier team can literally blast apart anything short of an Übercharge (or specialized counters, like the Short Circuit) with a salvo of rocket barrage. However good Snipers can shut Soldiers down from outside their effective range and competent Pyros can effectively shut them down entirely by reflecting the rockets back at the enemy team. These are by no means insurmountable for a team of Soldiers however.
Dirty Communists: His domination responses reveal that this is what he thinks of the enemy Heavy (in contrast to other classes, who make fun of the Heavy for his size).
- "A Cold Day In Hell" reveals he's not immune to Sensual Slavs, though, as he quickly agrees to have sex with Heavy's younger sister, Zhanna.
- "Shadow Boxers" implies that he'd have a problem with his own teammates being non-American (particularly the Heavy being Russian and the Medic being German) if he weren't gullible enough to believe them when they say they're also American.
Soldier: Come on guys! Why would I lie? We're all Americans here!
Ms. Pauling: Well, not all of us, obviously. I mean, Medic's German and Heavy's from Russ- (Heavy nudges her) Ow! What? Oh.
Heavy: Ha ha! Germany! Russia! Is big joke! Big American joke on Soldier!
Soldier: Ha! You got me!
Heavy: Ohh, America. It is the place I am from. All the time.
Difficult, but Awesome:
- Rocket jumping. A lot of people see it as just a typical advantage that Soldiers and Demos have, but when you can blast all the way across the map in five seconds (as showcased in the openings to these tutorials) and even outpace the Scout with enough practice, it becomes clear how useful it really is when it comes to catching key targets and taking objectives. With a Market Gardener, this trope gets elevated, as you need to also learn the correct timing and position to swing, but when it all works out, you can assassinate Medics and Snipers from behind their teammates.
- The Direct Hit is a conceptually basic but unforgiving-in-practice sidegrade to the default Rocket Launcher: in exchange for greatly reduced explosion size, rockets deal more damage, fly significantly faster, and also deal mini-crits on enemies launched into the air by any hostile means. The reduced explosion size is quite noticeable (splash damage being something you don't quite appreciate until it's gone), meaning you genuinely do have to aim to strike direct hits on enemies to be effective, something that the increased projectile speed may throw you off of, but the increased damage is still nothing to sniff at, and the weapon is especially good at blowing up sentries and other enemy buildings.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: Very similar to Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, and the most psychotic member of the team. You could say he's worse than Pyro, since at least Pyro does it because of the goggles.
Dumb Muscle: Generally portrayed as the least intelligent and lowest-ranking member of the team, but it's implied that it's generally easier on the Team to let him believe whatever won't get the rest of them killed:
A man whose combat strategies are so complex, so nuanced, that they have never been used on the field of battle, even though Heavy told him they would try them out last week.
Eagleland: A poster boy for Flavour #2, being a complete idiot, attempting to solve all problems with violence, and hating pretty much everything non-American — while at the same time believing that everything good either is American or ought to be.
Embarrassing First Name: Mister Jane. That's right, not "Captain Jane" or "Corporal Jane" or even "Private Jane". Just MISTER Jane. It's expanded on a little bit later on, with Soldier's official title/rank being Sergeant-Barrister; but even then, it's not always clear if the "Mister" literally is his name or just a title.
Eskimos Aren't Real: Invoked to goad his enemies on. The Soldier will declare that Scotland is not a real country, and thus the Scottish Demoman is actually "an Englishman in a dress". At the same time, considering this is Soldier saying this, though, it's entirely possible he actually believes this.
Establishing Character Moment: Meet the Soldier virtually says everything that needs to be said about him. He's armed with a rocket launcher and a shotgun by default, can rocket-jump, a great frontline class, and is an absolute nutjob.
Everyone Has Standards:
- When the Administrator offers to kill the RED Demoman in exchange for new weapons in the WAR! comic, Soldier immediately refuses on account of their friendship, even when she plays a fake video of Demo claiming he's a bad friend. He sees through most of it almost immediately, and only ends up going along with the deal when the fake Demo calls him a civilian and triggers his Berserk Button.
- While Soldier might be a crazed, warmongering maniac who blows up anyone he considers to be his enemy, it's implied that even he is disturbed by some of the ways Pyro kills their enemies, notably when they smash a bear's head in with an axe in "A Cold Day in Hell".
Eye-Obscuring Hat: Has an army helmet as his default headwear, and it is tilted in a way that hides his eyes.^* Engineer even lampshades the trope when dominating a Soldier.
Engineer: Next time, lift your lid and you might see it comin'.
File Photo Gag: All three of the Mann brothers use a newspaper clipping of him in lieu of a photo, which is of him having won a nose-picking contest with the Soldier happily holding his trophy shaped like a hand with some snot on the pinky finger.
Flanderization: When introduced in "Meet the Soldier", the Soldier was portrayed as obsessed with war and dangerous in combat. With the in-universe justification of him getting lead poisoning from drinking the contaminated water in 2Fort, he's shifted from being crazy about war to being crazy in general, but still just as dangerous.
Fluffy Tamer: Whether it's rabid raccoons, bald eagles, or giant brain-eating maggots, Soldier seems to be genuinely fond of animals. He'd also rather contemplate eating his friends than some ermines in Siberia.
Friend to All Children: He's tough, but he took three kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, and didn't hesitate to defend the children of Teufort from Old Nick.
The Friend Nobody Likes: While the Pyro is merely feared by their team, Soldier is actively disliked by his peers for the way his sheer stubbornness, ignorance and uncontrollable bloodlust — often some combination of all three — always seem to cause problems.
From Nobody to Nightmare: Somehow, Soldier went from being rejected by every branch of the U.S. military, having no formal training, and being unable to locate Poland on a map to personally killing over 6000 people during and after World War 2 and becoming one of the nine deadliest mercenaries on Earth.
- Mann Co always hires the lowest bidder. Soldier once offered to pay to build the Decoy map and — unlike characters like Demoman who lives in a mansion, or Medic, who is always spending money on exotic animal organs — is generally on the cusp of being homeless.
Full-Frontal Assault: Getting naked and covering himself in honey is apparently his preferred method of close-quarters combat. Despite its seeming impracticality, though? It works.
Soldier: Don't worry, Scout! I am nude and covered in honey again! LET'S GRAPPLE SOME DAMN BEARS!
Gender-Blender Name: His name is apparently Mister Jane Doe.
General Ripper: The Soldier is probably the most dangerously unstable, fanatically violent character in the whole team of lunatics - possibly even including the Pyro.
Genius Ditz: He may look like an American equivalent of a Nazi fanatic whose logic goes beyond reason, but be reminded that he is still that same guy who beats your face in with a shovel five seconds after a round starts.
- His bio tells how many people he managed to slaughter by himself despite the fact that World War II already ended.
- Even tracks down the place where Merasmus lives before Merasmus ever realizes Tom Jones was dead.
- Somehow made a functioning rocket launcher out of random junk.
- He is both a lawyer and a priest. Granted, those titles are only recognized in Guam, but still. That said, the one time someone actually came to him for legal advice, he was able to point out a glaring hole in their mutually exclusive claims of victory: both Redmond and Blutarch Mann were dead and ghosts, meaning neither of them really 'won' their petty squabble while the other still manifested on this mortal plane.
Global Ignorance: One of his domination lines involving Sniper has him mixing up New Zealand and Australia. Granted, Sniper is actually from New Zealand, but Soldier didn't know at the time.
Gratuitous Spanish: "Hasta la vista! Feliz Navidad! Hasta gaspacho!" ^note
Hidden Depths:
- Though he loves war just as much as he despises his enemy, he's completely able to forge a friendship with the other team's Demoman after finding out they both have common ground with Stuff Blowing Up. He wouldn't budge on his friendship with the Demo until the Administrator pushed his one Berserk Button. Even after being pitted against Demo as mortal enemies, he sometimes has some kill-lines on enemy Demomen that aren't biting taunts, but instead show respect to his enemy.
You were good son, real good. Maybe even the best.
- After being magically granted a degree in law, although he often flops at being a lawyer when in court when defending himself, he's rather competent in helping to settle civil matters after the ghosts of Redmond and Blutarch Mann approach him to decide which brother "won", but he correctly points out that neither side has passed on yet, so there isn't an actual winner between them.
Historical Character Confusion: In "Meet the Soldier", he attributes the story of Noah's Ark to Sun Tzu instead.
Soldier: "Then he [Sun Tzu] used his fight money to buy two of every animal on Earth, and then he herded them onto a boat, and then he beat the crap out of every single one!"
Hot-Blooded: With this quote as he dominates a Pyro:
"You cannot burn me. I am already ablaze with passion for war!"
Hypocritical Humor: A Pyro domination line goes, "Fire is for cooking s'mores, son; get a REAL GUN." This coming from the guy whose primary is a rocket launcher (not technically a gun) and whose secondary default is a shotgun (the same as the Pyro).

I-Z

I'm a Humanitarian: He nearly eats the Scout and his own hands while they and the Pyro are stranded and starving in the frozen wastes of Russia.
Idiot Savant: Soldier's grip on tactics, language, logic, and basic sanity is very suspect and he's never actually been in the military, but he did manage to figure out how to use his weaponry without killing himself or getting killed fighting in World War II (and then probably many more unfortunate random individuals around Europe who were subject to his attacks four years after the war ended) and now survives working as a mercenary fighting against other mercenaries hardened by possibly (marginally) more legitimate means.
Inexplicably Identical Individuals: All of the classes are, of course, but his is a particularly poignant case: many of the facts now established for the RED Soldier in the comics (Phony Veteran status, Berserk Button, Battle Cry, Gender-Blender Name) were originally portrayed in the WAR! comic as belonging to the BLU Soldier. This is possible evidence that each team's membership is made of clones.
Innocently Insensitive: In "Doom-Mates," Merasmus erupts into a spirit form from his corporeal body to rant about the Soldier's antics. Soldier completely tunes out Merasmus' speech to burn his body, treating it as a genuine courtesy for the recently departed. Naturally, this only enrages Merasmus further, leading to the events of the fourth Scream Fortress event.
Irony: The Soldier has made his disdain towards hippies and long hair (read: anything longer than a buzz cut) clear. There's also a promotional hat in the form of unusual-looking long hair for the Soldier.
It's All About Me: Capturing points or intelligence noticeably has him stress in his lines that they're his.
Jack of All Stats: Within the praxis of normal gameplay, the Soldier is a generalist who doesn't fulfill nor exceed in any niche that the other classes don't already, but his versatility warrants his placement on any team. He isn't as fast or instantly lethal as a Sniper with his rifles, nor does he have the controlled, reliable burst damage as a Demoman with his arsenal of explosives, but with good aim, he can still lay down solid splash damage and rack up kills with his rocket launchers that will be impossible for the enemy to ignore. He has relatively slow running speed offset by the incredible mobility potential that comes from Rocket Jumping, and while it's inherently riskier than what the Scout can accomplish by simply running faster than everyone else, players with enough mastery can turn into frightening Lightning Bruisers in their own right. Finally, when it comes to defenses, his above-average health makes him second only to the Heavy, who he can join as a fellow effective front-line fighter, and can serviceably act as a defensive anchor if the team is lacking a proper Heavy.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is absurdly jingoistic and looks down on people from every country that isn’t America, openly insulting the nationality of non-American classes. Otherwise, he's pretty kind to kids, is capable of befriending enemy mercs, and while his teammates can't stand him, he does show a modicum of care towards them as his comrades.
Juggling Dangerously: His taunts with non-Shotgun secondaries involve him juggling two grenades from his bandolier and a rocket.
Katanas Are Just Better: The Soldier can wield the Half-Zatoichi just like the Demoman. It can be useful with its longer melee range and its heal on frag, but the Soldier will suffer from Honor Before Reason as sheathing it causes self-damage unless he's killed someone with it (previously, it couldn't be sheathed at all unless it kills someone).
Kiai: Screams "HUTTAH!" whenever he snaps someone's neck in the supplemental comics.
Large Ham: He may potentially be one of the hammiest members of the team, especially in the comics.
Laughing Mad: He's already loopy, but in "Expiration Date", after accidentally creating a giant bread monster, he descends into maniacal laughter as he gets beaten up.
Lawful Stupid: In "Expiration Date" he takes an offhand comment that he could hypothetically teleport bread as an instruction to spend three days doing nothing else, with disastrous results.
Leader Wannabe: The official Soldier is quite convinced that he's in charge, and the team finds it easier to let him think that. Community content often implies a saner Soldier can be the standard "Team leader" figure.
Leitmotif: Rocket Jump Waltz and The Art of War. In Memoriam of his voice actor, Rick May, a third one was added, Saluting the Fallen.
Life Drain: With the Black Box, an alternate Primary Weapon, the Soldier can heal up to 20 health when he deals damage with the rockets. However, it has only 3 rockets in its clip, shaving off the Soldier's damage potential.
Limit Break: The Soldier can trade his traditional shotgun with several backpacks that can activate special effects for the Soldier and his teammates nearby once the Soldier has dealt enough damage. The Buff Banner allows the Soldier and teammates nearby to deal mini-crits, the Battalion's Backup grants 35% resistance to damage, 50% resistance to sentries and immunity to critical hits and mini-crits, finally the Concheror grants speed buff and a heal for damage dealt.
Macross Missile Massacre:
- The Beggar's Bazooka can fire three highly inaccurate missiles at once. Upgrading it in the Mann Vs. Machine mode allows him to exceed the limits of the normal game mode and jam up to eleven rockets into a weapon that by all rights shouldn't be able to hold them, then unleash them all at once.
- The Air Strike has increased firing speed while rocket jumping, and enjoys an increased clip size with every kill the Soldier scores with it. A full clip of 8 being emptied onto enemy lines demonstrates the trope very accurately.
- An all-Soldier team subverts Diminishing Returns for Balance thanks to this. A single rocket deals a pitiful 45 at long range? How about 12 of them firing at once? And since buildings are not affected by damage fall-off, not even Sentry nests will last long against that kind of firepower.
Major Injury Underreaction: In Ring of Fired, he complains to Miss Pauling, "Pyro cut off my hand!" in the same tone of voice a little girl would use to complain about a boy tugging on her pigtail.
Malaproper: The supplemental comics have him replacing words with other words that sound similar, for instance, 'pepper-pants' when he had meant to say 'pepper pot' and 'salsa' instead of 'salty.' In the game, he seems unable to correctly pronounce anything related to literature, if his constant mangling of the names of characters from The Lord of the Rings and the Bombinomicon is any indication. He always sounds like he's close to what he means to say, but it's patently clear he's just spouting gibberish syllables.
Mighty Glacier: Downplayed, in that while he’s no Heavy in this fighting style, a Soldier who isn’t rocket jumping or is in a fight where he’s not able to do so is a high health, lumbering and hard hitting class. The bulk of his balancing comes from his Rocket Launcher, which deals some of the most reliable burst damage in the game thanks to its forgiving projectiles without the fire rate of weapons like the Heavys minigun or the high ammo capacity of the Demomans weapons, which means Soldiers fire slow while reloading even slower, meaning he’ll deal great damage and then either have to retreat to cover to reload the entire magazine or painstakingly fire one rocket at a time if he runs dry. The developer commentary summarizes this design philosophy when it comes to balancing his fighting style.
"(…) His main weaknesses are designed into his primary weapon, the rocket launcher. It has a small clip size, which forces the Soldier to carefully manage his reloads, and it fires relatively slow-moving projectiles, making it ineffectual beyond short range against any opponent who dodges well, like the Scout."
Mini-Me: The Profane Puppeteer taunt makes him spawn a puppet version of himself for a ventriloquist act.
Misery Builds Character: As the Soldier says, "Pain is weakness leaving the body!"
Monster Roommate: RED Soldier's former roommate is an immortal spellcasting wizard! Although if you asked the wizard himself, you’ll find out whatever evil he can do pales in comparison to what it’s like living with Soldier.
Moral Myopia: To the Soldier, it's only a war crime if the enemy team does it.
Naked People Are Funny: "Scout, I am nude and covered in honey again! Let's wrestle some damn bears!" A convenient text bubble informs us that the last time he did it was on a double date with Scout.
- "Old Wounds" has him take off all of his clothes to use a toilet for some reason, especially since the last thing we saw him say was that they were going to use the toilet to clean Zhanna's severed hand.
- He also gets nude and covered in honey with Zhanna in order to wrestle some robots in "The Naked and the Dead", and it is simultaneously hilarious and badass.
Neck Snap: Practically his Signature Move in the comics, always accompanied by a yell of "HUTTAH!" During the Scream Fortress 2023 update, a neck snap taunt was officially added for Soldier in the main game.
Never Learned to Read: It has been confirmed that four of the Mercenaries are illiterate, and while Valve can be vague about who they are, the Soldier is the first confirmed, having been shown attempting to read and apparently failing several times. For this reason, he also thinks Sun Tzu is ultimately why zoological parks are called zoos.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The reason the teams have been fighting otherworldly beings on Halloween for the past two years? This 'genius' decided to tick off an evil wizard both years. Yep, the main reason these characters are fighting for their lives on Halloween is entirely the Soldier's fault.
Soldier: "Then I told the mighty ghost wizard, 'Ha! I'd like to see you try!'. And that is why he's killing all of us right now!"
Scout: "I gotta admit, that DOES sorta explain everything."
- In "Expiration Date", he's also responsible for creating a Bread Monster that nearly kills him, the other members of the RED team, and Miss Pauling. All thanks to doing nothing but teleport bread for 3 days straight. ^note
No Indoor Voice: Soldier almost always talks in a shout, regardless of who he's talking to or what he's talking about. Fandubs of the comic follow this.
Noodle Incident:
- As seen in "A Cold Day in Hell", he has apparently been naked and covered in honey many times before. A footnote reads "See Naked Tales of Valor #1-37, Scout's Worst Double Dates #14."
- Soldier has also mentioned the act of "holding in your best buddy's guts and screaming at the sky" more than once, generally suggesting that this was his specific last attachment to sanity.
- After the ghosts of Redmond and Blutarch Mann ask him to settle a civil matter on who "won" between them, Soldier points out they're still at a stalemate since neither has passed on, but mentions that he could've done an exorcism if they were in Guam. It's implied he gained this in a similar vein to his law degree.
Odd Friendship: Per the comics, the BLU Soldier has this with the RED Demoman. Despite being on opposite teams and coming from vastly different backgrounds, the two have formed a strong bond with one another, having gone to baseball games, hunting, eaten whisky and ribs, and fought the police together among other things.
Official Couple: As of "A Cold Day In Hell", he's dating Heavy's younger sister Zhanna, not that Heavy is happy about it.
Older Than They Look: Being an adult during WWII makes Soldier 47 at the youngest during the game, and 51 during the comics, despite easily passing for someone in his 30s.
One-Liner, Name... One-Liner: When the Tin Soldier set is equipped, upon getting a Revenge Kill, the Soldier may say:
"Beep boop, son, beep boop."
One-Man Army: He was (or, at least, claimed to be) one of these from 1945 to 1949. It's officially stated that his killing spree ended four years after the war ended.
- Also, by his own claim, he spent some time in Guam; knowing him, it was years after the USA had recaptured Guam in 1944.
Other Me Annoys Me: Exaggerated here, as his Domination quotes show the Soldier doesn't even see his opposite-team counterpart as a real soldier at all.
Dominated, hippie! Get a job!
You better hope there's hackey-sack in Hell, hippie!
You are now a conscientious objector to being dead, hippie!
What's the matter, hippie? Hair get in your eyes?
You are a disgrace to the uniform!
Paper-Thin Disguise:
- Almost taken literally in that it's his cardboard Halloween costume, which he wore on his successful trips to infiltrate Gray Mann's headquarters.
- The Mann vs Machine map Decoy is Soldier's doing. It's an abandoned town that, for once in the entirety of Team Fortress 2 maps, does not actually hide anything of importance. Of note within the map is the abundance of hastily-applied white paint, the "Mann Co. Hatch of Great Importance" painted on a bunch of wooden boards, and the "Corn" sign on one of the spawn room buildings, with the last two letters crossed out and "Mann" appended to the front to make "Mann Co".
Parrot Exposition: In "Meet the Spy". See Captain Obvious above.
Patriotic Fervor: His pride for America is taken to the extreme for Rule of Funny.
Perma-Stubble: Always sports a coating of stubble on his lower face.
Pet the Dog:
- In this Halloween comic, it's hard to tell how serious the Soldier is about candy — it could just be him on the lam. But he does like kids.
- In an outtake of "Meet the Medic", the BLU Soldier holds a dying teammate in his arms. Crosses the Line Twice when he gets run over by a train.
- Like the Scout, he saves the kids of Teufort from being kidnapped.
Phony Veteran: Contrary to his claims, he has never served in an army, and all those medals he has are self-awarded and self-designed. However, he did acquire a flight to Poland (in 1945!) on his own initiative, though most of the years in Europe were spent killing civilians because he didn't know the war was over. This is his deepest shame, and he guards it intensely; being called out on it is enough to instantly break his loyalty, as shown in the WAR! comic.
Pitiful Worms: He sure loves to call people maggots and spineless worms.
"You are a spineless worm! You are a mistake of nature! You are walking vomit!"
Pity the Kidnapper: He mentions in "A Cold Day In Hell" that he's spent time in POW Camps voluntarily. And they all broke before he did.
Politically Incorrect Hero (or Politically Incorrect Villain if he's on the enemy team): His domination responses contain a number of offensive slurs against the Scottish, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Australians, and even the Canadians (he calls the Engineer a "cow-herdin' Canadian" in one such response). Despite this, he is still considered an indispensably versatile member of the team with a strong, if somewhat misguided good guy ethic.
Powerful Pick: The once-dreaded Equalizer is this. It was unusually powerful because it granted damage and speed buffs as the Soldier's health was lower. To balance it, the Equalizer's effect was split into it and another pick named the Escape Plan, which kept the speed buff.
Present Company Excluded: The Larval Lid hat causes Soldier to say a variety of different voice lines, many of which use this trope due to his fondness for mocking people as maggots.
Primal Chest-Pound: His taunt with the Direct Hit and the Beggar's Bazooka.
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: He does this quite a bit.
"Stand! On! The! Point! Numbnuts!"
"I! Am! On! FIRE!!!"
Puny Parachute: The B.A.S.E. Jumper is a backpack that replaces the secondary weapon of the Soldier. The Soldier can deploy a small parachute midair which slows his fall and allow him to better control the direction of his fall.
Rage Helm: The variant for Soldier's Thousand Yard Stare hat (which are just big googly eyes on his default helmet) parody this by just giving the eyes Angry Eyebrows.
Ray Gun: The Cow Mangler 5000 is a semi-futuristic laser variant of Soldier's rocket launcher while the Righteous Bison is a handheld laser pistol.
Real Men Eat Meat: "Digesting ribs" is one of the items on his (very short) list of activities which are acceptable for a man to do.
Real Men Have Short Hair: By default, the Soldier has a crew cut beneath his helmet. He also speaks derisively of long hair in many of his voice lines, sometimes vowing to give his opponents haircuts. Ironically, a handful of his cosmetic items gift him a fuller head of hair.
"Get a haircut, hippie."
"Get a haircut, trashcans."
"I am a robot! I am programmed to give you a sensible haircut!"
"I have returned from the grave to give the living haircuts."
Religious Bruiser: In "Grave Matters," he claims he is a priest. In Guam.
The Remnant: According to his official bio, after being rejected from all branches of the military, Soldier flew to Europe on his own and embarked on a 'Nazi killing spree', which ended when he heard news of the war's end. In 1949.
Riding the Bomb: The Rocket Jockey taunt makes him ride a missile when held down, akin to Dr. Strangelove.
Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: This is Soldier's basic stereotype.
Rocket Jump:
- If it's not the quintessential ability of the Soldier, it's definitely still among the top 3. The basics of rocket jumping are really easy to grasp — jump while shooting a rocket at your feet to launch you upwards at the cost of self-damage — but the amount of technical nuance and exploits you can do to get even more bang for your buck is ridiculous; for starters, you gain more horizontal mobility by strafing side-to-side, not by pressing forward, so high-level players often aim their rockets to hit perpendicular to the direction they wanna go in order to propel and turn themselves into their target destination. The skill ceiling is gigantic, but the closer you get to it, the closer that you can make Soldier into the fastest and most mobile class in the game.
- The Beggar's Bazooka is a particular rocket launcher with even crazier mobility potential due to the way that it's designed: in addition to having an intense firing speed when loaded up with multiple rockets (making it easier to stack explosions to grant yourself more speed), overloading a chamber with more than three rockets results in a point-blank "misfire" explosion that itself provides the knockback that normal rockets provide, effectively allowing Soldier to rocket jump mid-air without any terrain to bounce off of. This tends to be far less consistent than even usual "advanced" rocket jumping techniques and will result in even more self-damage, but if all the mechanical possibilities are properly strung together along with the Beggar's high burst damage potential, it has some truly bonkers potential in making Soldier the biggest Lightning Bruiser in the game by a wide margin.
Romantic Spoonfeeding: After sleeping with Heavy's younger sister Zhanna, they can be seen feeding each other at the dinner table as a Funny Background Event.
Savage Spiked Weapons: The Pain Train, a broken wooden handle with thin bent nails and a railroad spike in it.
Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Sometimes, especially when he's on a kill streak, he'll say "Kaboom!" or "Pa-pow!". Also, if he has the Tin Soldier costume set on, he goes "Beep beep boop" and occasionally "Robot noises!" while firing a weapon.
- His first reaction to finding a shipment of space ray guns is to pose dramatically and yell "PEW PEW PEW!"
Serial Killer: His backstory and some comments here and there paint the picture that Soldiers self-funded trip to Europe and his Nazi killing spree was probably just him roaming the countryside and massacring rural civilians he thought were enemy soldiers. Even after finding out the war was over years after the fact while in the middle of his campaign, and deep into his career as a mercenary decades later, he’s not bothered or probably even completely aware of the scale of his mistake.
(Post-Match Victory Bragging) One time I killed a man in Germany. After the war! He was asking for directions. I am more proud of this!
The Scourge of God: "If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!"
Sergeant Rock: He likes to look this way, but his teammates pay little attention, mostly because they all know he's completely insane.
Serious Business: Almost to the point of being the team "Stop Having Fun" Guy.
Sexy Shirt Switch: After sleeping with Zhanna, she lends him a frilly pink nightgown, as he doesn't have a spare change of clothes. Of course, him (and the rest of the team) are no stranger to Real Men Wear Pink (see: 2013's 'Magical Mercenary' hat).
Shovel Strike: While using either the standard shovel or the Market Gardener.
Signature Headgear: His default war helmet, which covers his eyes.
Situational Damage Attack: The Reserve Shooter deals mini-crits airborne caused by rocket launcher, explosion or grapple hooks, which makes for an interesting synergy with the Soldier's loadout.
Skill Gate Characters: While truly mastering Soldier takes months of practice and effort, learning his basics is far from difficult. Soldier's above-average health pool lets him make more mistakes without as much punishment, aiming at the ground with the Rocket launcher gives some leniency to precision shooting, and his flexibility as a class makes him excel in many situations. What makes him a Skill Gate Character is that a new player can do well in a low-level match, but anyone who hasn't learned how to Rocket Jump as mentioned before will get utterly decimated in high-level play, where a successful rocket jump rollout is crucial to the start of the round.
Sociopathic Soldier: …You really need to ask why he qualifies as this?
Taking You with Me: The Kamikaze taunt has him say, "C'mere, cupcake!" before using a grenade to blow himself up and take any nearby enemies with him.
Tank Goodness: Rides in a small tank in his Panzer Pants taunt. Though, while cool, it's useless in combat.
Taught by Experience: Managed to survive learning to fight after getting to Europe alone while untrained and unaffiliated to the U.S. because they wouldn't accept him due to being a total lunatic/idiot. Granted, he "fought" for four years after World War 2 had ended.
Team Pet: In the Fourth Annual Halloween Special, he adopts a ton of raccoons. Wild ones that bite him and subsist on rancid sour cream he stole from his former roommate's house, but oh well. A couple of these raccoons are cosmetics for the Soldier. Lieutenant Bites, who bites onto the Soldier's ammo pouch, and Semi-tame Trapper's Hat, a raccoon which clings to his head.
Testosterone Poisoning: According to the Soldier, true men get haircuts, yell, eat ribs, do pushups, and defend hills. Any person who doesn't do these activities every waking moment is a pansy.
They Killed Kenny Again: The BLU Soldier is killed in every Meet the Team video, and the two extra videos; the corpse of a BLU Soldier falls off the Red Bread van in Expiration Date, despite the short not focusing around the RED vs BLU conflict, and a Soldier (he's offscreen, so we don't get to see his team affiliation) is brutalized by Heavy in Meet the Sandvich.
This Cannot Be!: At times, it doesn't take much to astonish him., like in "Expiration Date".
Spy: This... is a bucket.
Soldier: Dear God.
Spy: There's more.
Soldier: No...!
Thousand-Yard Stare: Parodied with the cosmetic of the same name; it's a pair of large googly eyes stuck on the Soldier's helmet. The variant gives it angry eyebrows.
Too Dumb to Fool: In terms of intelligence he's tied for last with Pyro, and yet he is remarkably immune to basic deception; in the supplemental comics, Soldier is able to see through the various Paper Thin Disguises that can fool other people (for instance, once spotting Miss Pauling dressed as a cop, complete with false mustache, when Merasmus was completely taken in by the ruse). He manages to stretch this trope into "Dumb Enough To Fool Everyone Else," as he is also an Idiot Savant in the area of infiltration, having successfully listened in on secret robot meetings at Gray Mann's place (and only found out because Gray Mann built a robot Engineer smart enough notice the idiot in the corner wearing a cardboard costume was not actually a robot) as well as breaking into all manner of secret bases.
Trademark Favorite Food: Captain Dan's army surplus soup. And ribs. At least, these are BLU Soldier's favorites according to WAR!; it's unclear if this is one of the areas in which the Soldiers differ.
Undying Loyalty: Soldier may be a psychotic lunatic, dumber than a brick-on-bonemeal sandwich and a war fanatic, but as WAR! shows, he's also incredibly loyal to his friends. The BLU Soldier passionately vows that he would rather die than murder the RED Demoman, especially for something as cheap as new guns; only by hammering on his Berserk Button and making him believe Demoman was mocking him for being a civilian behind his back was the Administrator able to break his loyalty. The RED Soldier is quite up for being tortured endlessly even if only to show his loyalty.
Unorthodox Reload: He reloads his rocket launchers, weapons that can normally load only one RPG in the tube at a time, by stuffing multiple rockets one after the other into them. Don’t ask how they all fit in there, let alone actually fire one after the other.
Unreliable Narrator: It should be noted that anything that comes out the Soldier's mouth should be taken with a grain of salt due to his questionable sanity (unless confirmed by other characters). This includes his many offscreen escapades involving wars he fought when he was totally a legitimate enlisted soldier in the armed forces.
Ventriloquism: A taunt introduced in Scream Fortress 2021 has him doing so by using a puppet Soldier. He's not very good at it since he covers his mouth with his hand while making it talk.
Voodoo Doll: The Pin Pals are voodoo dolls of a Scout, Demoman, and Sniper, which replace his grenades. He shares this cosmetic with The Pyro.
War Memorial: He kneels over a gravestone in his Soldier's Requiem taunt. Five years later Valve would put memorial Soldier statues on several maps after the passing of Soldier's voice actor, Rick May, with one being a permanent edition in CP_Granary. (Where "Meet the Soldier" took place.)
Whip of Dominance: The Disciplinary Action is an officer's riding crop that is more suited to support rather than attack. It has a -25% damage penalty but boosts the Soldier and his teammates' speed on hit.
With Friends Like These...: With Scout.
Would Hit a Girl: When the Administrator comes with the proposition of killing his best friend, Soldier threatens to shove his boot so far up her ass, it'll be on the news. Also prepares to threaten the female Apple Store assistant with the same before being interrupted by a pig cooking tool.
Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: Says this about himself when he has the Larval Lid hat equipped.
Your Mom: In Mann vs. Machine mode, he may use a variant of a well-known insult and may be a reference to Full Metal Jacket:
Soldier: The best part of you ran down your motherboard.