History Film / MenOfHonor

* CareerEndingInjury: At the beginning of the film, Sunday goes on a hasty deep dive to save another diver who was knocked underwater. The damage it does to his body means he can never dive again.

* RebuiltPedestal: Carl seeks to be a Navy diver after seeing Sunday make an imposing figure in the suit and then sacrifice his health and career to save a man from drowning, while also being impressed by how Sunday is a former farmer like him. He is harshly disillusioned after Sunday makes his racism clear to Carl while subjecting him to DrillSergeantNasty abuse and sabotage, and calls him out as being an empty and hateful man. However, later in the film, they reconcile as Sunday finds it hard to deny Sunday's skill and drive, refuses an order to kill him, repairs his broken beloved radio (after having previously broken it himself), and later supports him when he needs to learn how to walk and dive with a prosthetic limb.

* SinkOrSwimMentor: Sunday's teaching philosophy includes literally making men stay underwater
For dangerous periods to test their lung capacity and perseverance.

* AxCrazy: Pappy. He’s not the serial killer type but he’s definitely got MANY screws loose in his head, which is the reason why he was never promoted past Captain. Then of course due to his viscous almost fanatical racism (which even for the times would have been considered too much) he tries to have Carl murdered.

* PrettyInMink: Sunday's wife.

* SinkOrSwimMentor: Sunday's teaching philosophy.

* JackieRobinsonStory: He was ''not'' the first African-American Navy diver[[note:]]That honor most likely belongs to [[https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/us-people/t/turpin-john-henry-Dick.html Chief John Henry Turpin]], who was also one of, if not ''the'' first black Chief Petty Officers in the US Navy.[[/note]], but he ''was'' the Navy's first African-American master diver. He later became the Navy's first [[spoiler: one-legged African-American diver]].

* JackieRobinsonStory: He was ''not'' the first African-American Navy diver[[note:]]That honor most likely belongs to [[https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/us-people/t/turpin-john-henry-Dick.html, who was also one of, if not ''the'' first black Chief Petty Officers in the US Navy.[[/note]] Chief John Henry Trupin, but he ''was'' the Navy's first African-American master diver. He later became the Navy's first [[spoiler: one-legged African-American diver]].

* JackieRobinsonStory: He was ''not'' the first African-American Navy diver, but he ''was'' the Navy's first African-American master diver. He later became the Navy's first [[spoiler: one-legged African-American diver]].

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Captain Pullman. He doesn’t show contempt with Carl for disregarding the swim schedule and is extremely impressed by his confidence and ballsiness that he makes him a deck seaman and when Carl announces he wants to go to diving school and asks Pullman for his recommendation, the Captain (even though he doesn’t believe it will work due to the racism at the time in the Navy) endorses Carl’s request.
** He also is very lenient with his punishment of Chief Sunday as he sticks him with a training assignment then outright forcing him into early retirement which then Lieutenant Hanks (eventually Captain Hanks) wanted to see happen.

* HowTheMightyHaveFallen: Sunday becomes a drunken and depressed rouge following his multiple demotions not to mention due to his alcoholism and bitterness, his marriage suffers and his reputation in the Navy is in shambles.

* TheAlcoholic: Sunday. It gets even worse as he suffers numerous reductions in rank and has to be remanded for a month at detox center after another drunken disorderly episode.

* TheAlcoholic: Sunday. It gets even worse as he suffers numerous reductions in rank and has to be remanded for a month at detox center after another drunken disorderly scene.

* HandicappedBadass: Carl, after losing his lower left leg

* NotSoDifferent: Sunday, who suffered a CareerEndingInjury rescuing men trapped underwater, first starts respecting Carl for saving a classmate in an underwater emergency at the risk of his own life. Later, he acknowledges that Carl is an "old Sailor" like himself, the kind that [=McNamara-esque=] [[ObstructiveBureaucrat "college boys"]] like Hanks want to get rid of, because they see men as more than statistics.

* CareerEndingInjury: At the beginning of the film, Sunday goes on a hasty deep dive to save sailors who were knocked underwater. The damage it does to his body means he can never dive again.

* TheMentor: Sunday to Brashear. Carl wouldn't have made master chief without him.