Posted on 04/16/2018 12:34:41 PM PDT by ethom
DI’s and Drill Sergeants actually work to be funny, because Boot Camp is very hard for even them (especially them). Being a funny Drill is a way to lighten things up for everybody.
Before FMJ, when I thought of DIs, I thought of Darren McGavin in “Tribes”.
Now infantry training school was a different story. It was worse than boot camp. They didn't call in forth phase boot camp for nothing.
I hated going to Edson range and then back up to San Onofre for field training. All those pretty women in their cars, particularly the convertibles. Made your di.., well you know.
In bootcamp you got a lot more sleep than the FMF, and humps had mortars, radios, ammunition, and M60s to be carried.
The cadences were a bit more ... pornographic once you were in a line battalion.
Awesome film!
Thing is, almost every role he played, Ermey channeled GySgt Hartman to some extent or another.
Even the grieving father he played in Dead Man Walking could've been Gunny, retired in civilian clothes.
My favorite scene from FMJ:
HARTMAN: Do any of you people know who Charles Whitman was? None of you dumbasses knows? Private Cowboy?
COWBOY: Sir, he was that guy who shot all those people from that tower in Austin, Texas, sir!
HARTMAN: That’s affirmative. Charles Whitman killed twelve people from a twenty-eight-storey observation tower at the University of Texas from distances up to four hundred yards. Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was? Private Snowball?
SNOWBALL: Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!
HARTMAN: That’s right, and do you know how far away he was?
SNOWBALL: Sir, it was pretty far! From that book suppository building, sir!
HARTMAN: All right, knock it off! Two hundred and fifty feet! He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. Oswald got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only six seconds and scored two hits, including a head shot! Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot? Private Joker?
JOKER: Sir, in the Marines, sir!
HARTMAN: In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!
...then would have been given the opportunity to entertain his sister?
Mary Jane Rottencrotch?
He whined how mean one particular DI was (who happened to be the platoon favorite) and got the man transferred.
Matthew Modine (Twitter) RIP amigo. ✌🏽PVT. Joker
At ITS the NCO's were awful. Total power trips with no repercussions. It was the first time we were ever denied our chow. The a-hole cpl. or sgt. said we were not worthy. F-in wannabe DI's.
Yeah. He also played Mr. Martin in the remake of Willard. Ernest Borgnine played the role in the original.
My favorite line of the remake is when Crispin Glover, playing Willard, goes into Martin's office and tells Martin that his rats will do whatever he tells them.
In typical Ermey fashion, Martin replies, "Then tell them to get the F*** out of my office!"
The thing is as you watched the Gunny, you just knew in your bones he was NOT acting.
Actually, you’re right. A lot of his lines were ad-libbed.
4) R. Lee Ermey, who played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, was originally only a consultant on the film, but pursued the part, and was allowed to ad-lib.
His inability to face McKinney meant that Kubrick needed someone to play the fearsome drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. The director originally cast a relative unknown, former Marine Tim Colceri, in the part. But the film’s technical consultant, R. Lee Ermey, had his eyes on the role. Ermey was a former Marine Sergeant who had served as a drill instructor before doing two tours of duty in Vietnam, and then making his acting debut in 1978’s “The Boys In Company ‘C.’” He then served as a technical advisor on both “Apocalypse Now” and “An Officer And A Gentleman,” appearing in a cameo in the former, and helping Louis Gossett Jr. win an Oscar for playing another Gunnery Sergeant in the latter. To begin with, Ermey was set to only be an advisor on “Full Metal Jacket,” but filmed his own audition tape, improvising insults while being pelted with oranges and tennis balls. His unfazed fury convinced Kubrick that he had the right man, and the rest was history. Ermey was allowed to improvise his profane insults (having to explain to the director what a ‘reach-around’ was at one point), with as much of 50% of the actor’s dialogue being ad-libbed, which was quite unusual for the meticulous Kubrick. Colceri, as consolation, was given the small but memorable role as the door gunner of the helicopter, while Ermey went on to a long career as a character actor, including essentially reprising his “Full Metal Jacket” role in films as diverse as “The Frighteners” and “Toy Story.”
>>>Ermey’s Hartman is nothing if not an equal-opportunity hater<<
No, the character wasn’t a “hater”, he was there to turn young men into Soldiers who’s lives, and the lives of their Comrades were dependent on their training, the tougher the better.
“When Gunny gets to heaven,
To Saint Peter he will tell,
‘One more Marine reporting, Sir,
I’ve served my time in hell....’”
R.I.P Gunny - you were loved and admired.
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