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R. Lee Ermey

That's Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey to you, maggot.

Gunnery Sergeant Ronald Lee Ermey (born 1944) is a former United States Marine Corps drill instructor turned actor/media personality. Ermey became a pop culture icon off of his role in the Stanley Kubrick film Full Metal Jacket, which had him play a foul-mouthed drill instructor whose sadistic training methods end up driving one recruit insane and leading to his death. Incidentally, his scenes are one of the few times Kubrick ever allowed improvisation in any of his films.

The role made him the poster child for the trope Drill Sergeant Nasty and landed him work in other films (most notably Se7en, where he ironically plays against type as a rather mellowed out police captain), as well as a slew of voice-over work due to his distinct gruff voice, and ultimately a hosting job for several History Channel military-themed shows (Mail Call and Lock n' Load with R. Lee Ermey). He's also guest-starred as the abusive ex-Drill Sergeant Nasty father of the title character of House.

He actually retired from the Marines as a Staff Sergeant. In 2002, he was the first person in Marine Corps history to be promoted after retirement when the Commandant of the Marine Corps ordered an honorary promotion to Gunnery Sergeant "in recognition of his continuing support to Americans in military service, and of his service as an unofficial ambassador for the Marine Corps."

Person

Adam Westing: In Saving Silverman.
- Also, his Geico commercial.
Ascended Extra: Originally brought on to Full Metal Jacket for accuracy advice, his demonstrations of how to do a Drill Sergeant Nasty were so good that he was cast in his famed role.
- Said demonstration was unflinchingly chewing out the camera with both tennis balls and rotten oranges being thrown at him, and he continued to chew out the camera for fifteen straight minutes, during which he never once moved, changed his expression, or repeated himself.
Badass: A U.S. Marine. 'Nuff said.
- Was an established drill instructor at age 21.
Badass Biker: Shows off his shooting skills on the back of his bike on Lock 'N Load.
Cast The Expert: How he got his most famous role.
Defictionalization: Being cast as a Gunnery Sergeant (E-7) in his iconic role despite having retired as a Staff Sergeant (E-6) always caused a bit of awkwardness when people would inevitably refer to him as the former. 15 years later the Marine Corps graciously offered to remedy the situation with an unprecedented post-retirement promotion to Gunnery Sergeant due to his continued service promoting the Corps and its values.
The Determinator: Was once in a car accident which knocked him off the road. He flashed his lights for hours until someone found him.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: He is the consummate master of this trope.
- To the point of Type Casting.
Large Ham
Mean Character Nice Actor: He can be downright mellow and soft-spoken when he's not in Drill Sergeant Nasty mode. For that matter, in the bloopers that showed after Mail Call, he often came across as a bumbling old dad type when he flubbed his lines.
- Indeed, the main reason for the aforementioned Full Metal Jacket audition is that Stanley Kubrick thought Ermey was too nice a guy to play such a nasty character.
No Indoor Voice
Semper Fi
Shout Out: The anime series Full Metal Panic, in addition to being named for Full Metal Jacket, has an episode where the protagonist plays Drill Sergeant Nasty to a rugby team; the English dub takes this up a notch by having him quote Ermey's character verbatim. The swearing was intentionally censored, which only makes the scene even funnier.
- There's also this Japanese English phrase(?) book◊, which features an Army moe-girl whose dialogue consists of nothing but uncensored Full Metal Jacket character quotes.
I rike you. Come ova to my house and fuck my shista.
- Another anime example: Pani Poni Dash! has a few scene cut-away pictures of Ermey depicted in his Full Metal Jacket role. It's worth noting the animators spared no detail to his likeness.
- The writers of Green Lantern have created a Green Lantern Drill Instructor character who is a slightly more mellowed out version of Hartman.
- In Starcraft, the driver of the Siege Tank asks "What is your major malfunction?"
Throw It In: A good bit of the lines from Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, in Full Metal Jacket, were adlibbed by Ermey, who was one of the few actors that Kubrick allowed to go off-script when shooting scenes.
I'LL BET YOU'RE THE KIND OF GUY WHO WOULD FUCK A PERSON IN THE ASS AND NOT EVEN HAVE THE GOD-DAMNED COMMON COURTESY TO GIVE HIM A REACH-AROUND!!
- Note: He had to explain what a "reach around" was to Kubrick after ad-libbing the line.
Trope Codifier: Most Drill Sergeant Nasty characters take a page from his book (if they aren't played by him in the first place).
Type Casting: Perhaps the Ur Example. Seriously, if he's not playing a drill instructor, he's playing someone who acts like a drill instructor.
Younger Than They Look: He was only 42 when he filmed Full Metal Jacket. He looks almost the same from then as in his Geico commercial...over 20 years later.

Shows

Bullet Time: What did you expect with all of the guns on Lock n' Load?
The Cameo: On the Artillery episode of Lock and Load, the hwacha, an ancient Korean multiple rocket launcher, is mentioned and shown being fired. It's the exact same one that the MythBusters Build Team constructed, as shown by the mismatched wheels, though this fact is not mentioned in the show.
Does Not Like Spam: Mail Call has the host note that watermelons are his "sworn enemy", and hence uses them as target practice. This gets carried over to Lock n' Load.
- However, Ermey actually plays with the trope in an episode of Lock and Load. "Some people think I don't like watermelons. Well, that's not true - I just believe you gotta kill it before you eat it."
  - In another episode, he comments that he has nothing against watermelons, it's just that heads are so much more expensive.
  - Maybe a shout out to FMJ, since the one thing Private Snowball wouldn't like was that (in addition to fried chicken) watermelon isn't served on a daily basis in his mess hall.
- Another episode of Lock n' Load had Ermey mow down several jars of gumballs with an uzi, prefacing the destruction by saying "I HATE Gumballs, they cause tooth decay!!"
Fourth Wall Mail Slot: The main point of Mail Call.
Hand Cannon: In a Lock and Load episode, when the host fires a .44 Magnum and gets knocked down in the process, he promptly does not want to fire it again.
- Actually, he just doesn't want to fire it from the awkward crouched position he was in, as it put him off balance and knocked him over. In another episode, he uses a .44 Magnum in a test, despite that caliber not being around when the feature he was testing was invented. He used it just because he likes it better.
More Dakka: Look, Lock And Load is about firearms. What do you expect? (Taken to its logical extent with episodes devoted solely to machine guns, from the original hand-cranked Gatling onwards.)
Pin-Pulling Teeth: Ermey addresses this in an episode of Mail Call, pointing out how doing this is a good way to lose teeth.