Drill Sergeant Quotes

All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.

The central attitudes driving the Drill Sergeant are: I need to control your every move or you will do it wrong. I know the exact way that everything should be done. You shouldn’t have anyone else — or any thing else — in your life besides me. I am going to watch you like a hawk to keep you from developing strength or independence. I love you more than anyone in the world, but you disgust me. (!!)

I’m grinning like the town idiot. And now is not the time to be grinning like the town idiot, not when I’m buck naked in a room full of showering dudes and my girlfriend is glaring daggers at me. But I’m so happy to see her that I can’t control my facial muscles. My eyes eat up the sight of her. Her gorgeous face. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail with a pink hair thingie. Infuriated green eyes. She’s so damn hot when she’s mad at me. “It’s nice to see you too, baby,” I answer cheerfully. “How was your break?” “Don’t you baby me. And don’t ask about my break because you don’t deserve to know about it!” Hannah glowers at me, then shifts her attention to the three hockey players in the neighboring stalls. “For the love of Pete, would you guys just rinse off and skedaddle already? I’m trying to yell at your captain.” I choke back a laugh, which ends up spilling out when my teammates snap to attention like they’ve been issued a command by a drill sergeant. Showers turn off and towels come out, and a moment later, Hannah and I are alone.

Tawny," I barked. My voice held the authority of a drill sergeant. She jumped. "I am NOT making out with you until the end of time. You want to do this, then you've got to work for it. Now, TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES." "Oh," said Hugh. "I've waited ten years to hear you say that to another woman.

Nobody will press your buttons or reflect your asshole to you better than your woman. She will point out your weaknesses better than a boot camp drill sergeant.

Just remember, Sergeant Grabowski. You may be able to order me around, but we both know who makes your privates stand at attention.

I’d like to encourage us all to lighten up, to practice with a lot of gentleness. This is not the drill sergeant saying, “Lighten up or else.” I have found that if we can possibly use anything we hear against ourselves, we usually do.

The drill sergeants were just pretending to be drill sergeants. We were pretending to be soldiers. The Army was pretending to be the Army.

You don’t create a diamond by rubbing it with fluffy bunny slippers. You need to apply pressure and heat. There are enough air-headed cheerleaders out there. We need more drill sergeants.

In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom. Our latent psychopathy is the last nature reserve, a place of refuge for the endangered mind. ...microdoses of madness, like the minute traces of strychnine in a nerve tonic..a voluntary and elective psychopathy...the drill sergeant's boot and punishment run give back to young men a taste for pain that generations of socialized behavior have bred out of them.

any approach that increases your inner drill sergeant’s impulse to shame you into behaving (and make you feel like a failure if you can’t) will do no better in internal families than it does in external ones in which parents adopt shaming tactics to control their children

During Basic, sometimes you're so tired you can't even get up to piss. You're pushed beyond whatever limits you had set for yourself. You realize that your body can do things that you never imagined. But there are times when you don't think you can go on, and that's when your brother is there to lift you up and push you forward. He yells encouragement when the drill sergeant's yelling obscenities. You know that if you're ever caught by the enemy, your brothers will never stop looking for you. If you're hurt they'll help heal you. The Corps is a unit of many, not one, but dozens, thousands even, who have your back. You can smite one Marine, but a thousand will rose up to avenge him.

Jason shouted in his best drill-sergeant voice: “Frank Zhang! I, Jason Grace, praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, give you my final order: I resign my post and give you emergency field promotion to praetor, with the full powers of that rank. Take command of this legion!

Leo, do take Win to her room. You're both exhausted. We'll have time for talking tomorrow."(Amelia) "Ah, that lovely tone of command," Leo reminisced. "I'd hoped that by now you would have rid her of the habit of barking out orders like a drill sergeant, Rohan." "I enjoy all her habits," Rohan replied, smiling at his wife.

I would wish this book could take the form of a plea for everlasting peace, a plea from one who knows... Or it would be fine to confirm the odd beliefs about war: it's horrible, but it's a crucible of men and events and, in the end, it makes more of a man out of you. But, still, none of these notions seems right. Men are killed, dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are afraid and often brave, drill sergeants are boors, some men think the war is proper and just and others don't and most don't care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme? Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

I have stood down sadistic drill sergeants, cruel Iraqi interrogators, partisan lawmakers, and the Washington press corps, but my daughter can punch my buttons like no one else.

...Miss Blanche Heyward, opera dancer, would have made a superlative drill sergeant if she had just been a man.

In the Army, the drill sergeants said, "Eat it now and taste it later.

Described as a "workaholic speed-writing freak" by fellow writers, a "creative writing class drill sergeant" by his writing 'padawans', Voinov is a self-confessed geek and has enlarged his days by 12 secret hours in return for the sacrifice of ten albino virgin pygmy hippos.

The drill sergeants learned that lavishly praising recruits who got it right worked better than abusing those who got it wrong. The women had been raised to please, Tracy Borum discovered,

Yikes, this was going to require every bit of motherly instinct she possessed.  Elisabeth took a deep breath… and nothing happened. Shit, damn, okay, she’d fall back on what she was good at when it came to her children, part drill-sergeant, and part crazy, suicidal cop on the edge.  Hey, you should always go with what works, and play to your strengths. 

To be in the Army, you need to be smart or strong, and you privates ain’t either.

He shouted out like a drill sergeant, "Men, are we having fun yet? "No sir!" the vets cried out. "Men, are we going to fight like soldiers or fools?" The vets looked at one another, grinned. "Like fools, sir!" Everyone laughed. Luger dropped his cup again, but this time he kicked it hard across the room. "I can still kick! And everyone in rehab worked a little harder.

My wife is a wonderful person, but if we’d planned a trip and my hand got ripped off by an escalator, she’d be like, “Fuck you, put it in a bag and bring it.” She would be a terrible nurse and a very good drill sergeant.

Many feminists have a serious blind spot. We’re ready to criticize patriarchy, and men’s misuse of power in a flash, but we ignore our own abuses of power. We see matriarchal control as gentle and kind, but the role of wife and mother can be just as authoritarian as a marine drill sergeant. We seldom acknowledge the power that women have over children and we almost never speak about wives who dominate their husbands. In many homes, the authoritarian mother is a force to be reckoned with. Her rigid standards of sexual morality and her righteous indignation when her rules are broken make her a formidable adversary who is unbending, unyielding, and sometimes even violent.

But a Christ who is all grace cannot stir the masculine soul. Deep down, men long for a harsh affection—the love of a coach who yells at his players to get every ounce of effort; the love of a drill sergeant who pushes his recruits to the limits of human endurance; the love of a teacher who demands the impossible from his students. As Western society feminizes, it’s getting harder for men to find this kind of love. The Lion of Judah offers harsh father-love in abundance—yet he’s becoming an endangered species in the modern church.

It was that difficult moment when we usually part ways. Outside on the doorsteps in the light of the night as we embraced each other. She rested her lips against mine and I couldn’t help but think of the first time we kissed. Spontaneous and unsure if we were riding the same wave, I reached for her lips only to end with our laughter at the awkwardness. But despite the error of the first time, this time felt like new.Sighing in awe of the soft and gentle embrace of our lips, it turned into a tug of war. Like a battle because we didn’t want to let go of that smooth and passionate feeling. That was the final shake as the bottle was about to burst from the pressure, then it came: “I Love You”, I said softly but firmly. The words seemed to echo for an eternity back and forth between our chests.She stopped and stared at me. Just like my Drill Sergeant badge, I wore my heart on my sleeve. There was so much that she said without words. What a genuine expression of agreement that reflected from her beautiful brown eyes, beyond the ability of any woman to fake or hide. Then she kissed me even more passionately than ever before. In my heart, I believe that it could be more, if it wasn’t for….THE TABLE BETWEEN US

He said, “WHY DON’T YOU EAT MEAT, PRIVATE? ARE YOU RICH?” He talked like a Chicano Macho Man Randy Savage. I said I wasn’t rich. He said, “I SAW A SHOW ON TV. IT SAID THAT PEOPLE WHO DON’T EAT MEAT HAVE WEAK MINDS. THEY ARE EASY TO BRAINWASH. THAT MEANS THAT YOU ARE EASY TO BRAINWASH.” “YES, DRILL SERGEANT.

Whatever you do, just find an excuse to win!

It was getting on Tiffany’s nerves. She didn’t need a drill sergeant. What she needed was a pair of pants. The dress only inhibited her legs. “Why do I have to wear this stupid dress?” Tiffany snapped. “Because you’re tailless,” D.K. replied evenly. “If you had a tail, you wouldn’t need a sail between your legs to help steer. When your wings get bigger, you won’t need the gown. Be thankful you’re not wingless, too. Now, try again.” I’d rather be wingless.

In 1996 Dorothy Mackey wrote an Op-ed piece, “Violence from comrades a fact of life for military women.” ABC News 20/ 20 did a segment on rape in the military. By November four women came forward at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland, about a pattern of rape by drill sergeants. In 1997 the military finds three black drill sergeants to scapegoat. They were sent to prison and this left the commanding generals and colonels untouched to retire quietly. The Army appointed a panel to investigate sexual harassment. One of the panelists was the sergeant Major of the Army, Eugene McKinney. On hearing his nomination, former associates and one officer came forward with charges of sexual coercion and misconduct. In 1998 he was acquitted of all charges after women spoke (of how they were being stigmatized, their careers stopped, and their characters questioned. A Congressional panel studied military investigative practices. In 1998, the Court of Appeals ruled against Dorothy Mackay. She had been outspoken on media and highly visible. There is an old Arabic saying “When the hen crows cut off her head.”“This court finds that Col. Milam and Lt. Col. Elmore were acting in the scope of their duties” in 1991-1992 when Capt. Mackey alleged they harassed, intimidated and assaulted her. A legislative remedy was asked for and she appealed to the Supreme Court. Of course the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 1999, as it always has under the feres doctrine. Her case was cited to block the suit of one of the Aberdeen survivors as well!

The good news is that Reid will handle it. The bad news is that Reid will handle it. He won’t want our help. He won’t accept our help, and if he thinks, even for a second, that any of us might be inclined to engage in helping of any kind, he will have us shipped off to a convent in Switzerland.” “He wasn’t serious about the convent thing,” Elliot said with a roll of those icy, pale eyes. “And besides, Mom and Dad would never let him.” “He’s Reid,” Skylar retorted. “Mom and Dad won’t even realize he’s talking them into it. I’ll end up sipping tea with the nuns, and you’ll be dropping and giving some drill sergeant twenty at military school. Kali and Beth will probably end up in convents, too, and he doesn’t even know them.” “Don’t call me Beth.

With the organization and brevity of a drill sergeant, she began arranging them to her liking. "Alan here..." She took him by the arm and stood him between his parents' chairs. "And Shelby." She nudged Shelby beside him. "Caine,you sit in the foor." She tugged on his hand, until grinning, he obliged her. "And Diana-" Caine pulled his wife down on his lap before Gennie could finish. "Yes, that'll do. Justin over here with Rena.And Grant-" "I'm not-" he began. "Do as you're told,boy," Daniel bellowed at him,then spoke directly to his grandson. "Leave it to a Campbell to make trouble." Grumbling,Grant strolled over behind Daniel's chair and scowled down at him. "A fine thing when a Campbell's in a MacGregor family portrait." "Two Campbells," Shelby reminded her brother with alacrity.

A reflection on Robert Lowell Robert Lowell knew I was not one of his devotees. I attended his famous “office hours” salon only a few times. Life Studies was not a book of central importance for me, though I respected it. I admired his writing, but not the way many of my Boston friends did. Among poets in his generation, poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Alan Dugan, and Allen Ginsberg meant more to me than Lowell’s. I think he probably sensed some of that. To his credit, Lowell nevertheless was generous to me (as he was to many other young poets) just the same. In that generosity, and a kind of open, omnivorous curiosity, he was different from my dear teacher at Stanford, Yvor Winters. Like Lowell, Winters attracted followers—but Lowell seemed almost dismayed or a little bewildered by imitators; Winters seemed to want disciples: “Wintersians,” they were called. A few years before I met Lowell, when I was still in California, I read his review of Winters’s Selected Poems. Lowell wrote that, for him, Winters’s poetry passed A. E. Housman’s test: he felt that if he recited it while he was shaving, he would cut himself. One thing Lowell and Winters shared, that I still revere in both of them, was a fiery devotion to the vocal essence of poetry: the work and interplay of sentences and lines, rhythm and pitch. The poetry in the sounds of the poetry, in a reader’s voice: neither page nor stage. Winters criticizing the violence of Lowell’s enjambments, or Lowell admiring a poem in pentameter for its “drill-sergeant quality”: they shared that way of thinking, not matters of opinion but the matter itself, passionately engaged in the art and its vocal—call it “technical”—materials. Lowell loved to talk about poetry and poems. His appetite for that kind of conversation seemed inexhaustible. It tended to be about historical poetry, mixed in with his contemporaries. When he asked you, what was Pope’s best work, it was as though he was talking about a living colleague . . . which in a way he was. He could be amusing about that same sort of thing. He described Julius Caesar’s entourage waiting in the street outside Cicero’s house while Caesar chatted up Cicero about writers. “They talked about poetry,” said Lowell in his peculiar drawl. “Caesar asked Cicero what he thought of Jim Dickey.” His considerable comic gift had to do with a humor of self and incongruity, rather than wit. More surreal than donnish. He had a memorable conversation with my daughter Caroline when she was six years old. A tall, bespectacled man with a fringe of long gray hair came into her living room, with a certain air. “You look like somebody famous,” she said to him, “but I can’t remember who.” “Do I?” “Yes . . . now I remember!— Benjamin Franklin.” “He was a terrible man, just awful.” “Or no, I don’t mean Benjamin Franklin. I mean you look like a Christmas ornament my friend Heather made out of Play-Doh, that looked like Benjamin Franklin.” That left Robert Lowell with nothing to do but repeat himself: “Well, he was a terrible man.” That silly conversation suggests the kind of social static or weirdness the man generated. It also happens to exemplify his peculiar largeness of mind . . . even, in a way, his engagement with the past. When he died, I realized that a large vacuum had appeared at the center of the world I knew.

What is this?” demanded Sergeant Framingham. Quinn took a deep, slow breath. “Framingham, we left the Admiral downside.” “Have you lost your mind, he’s right there—” Framingham’s finger sagged in mid-point at Mark. His hand closed into a fist. “Oh.” He paused. “That’s the clone.” Quinn’s eyes burned; Mark could feel them boring through to the back of his skull like laser-drills. “Maybe not,” Quinn said heavily. “Not as far as House Bharaputra has to know.” “Ah?” Framingham’s eyes narrowed in speculation. No! Mark screamed inside. Silently. Very silently.

I came to the conclusion then that “continual mindfulness” could certainly not mean that my little conscious self should be entirely responsible for marshalling and arranging all my thoughts, for it simply did not know enough. It must mean, not a sergeant-major-like drilling of thoughts, but a continual readiness to look and readiness to accept whatever came…. Whenever I did so manage to win its services I began to suspect that thought, which I had always before looked on as a cart-horse, to be driven, whipped and plodding between shafts, might be really a Pegasus, so suddenly did it alight beside me from places I had no knowledge of.

Drill sergeant kids, who did a lot of saluting when they were young, will do a lot of saluting when teenagers, but the salute is different: a raised fist or a crude gesture involving the middle finger.

At the moment, he had the bearing of a drill sergeant. He was channeling his inner grizzly, and we’d poked the bear.

He’s never spontaneous, always serious. Even a walk in the woods is a serious endeavor. You need gear. You need a canteen, a coat, a camera, a first-aid kit, matches, a compass. He worries about bears. Warns of rabid raccoons. Ticks. Poison ivy. The kids tease him about being so serious. They scowl and march behind him, like little robots or soldiers, and they salute him like he’s their drill sergeant.” —Allison, Baltimore, MD

bottles. But the shy recruit beamed as he was praised. “I hand out a number of compliments, and all of them are designed to be unexpected,” said Sergeant Dennis Joy, a thoroughly intimidating drill instructor who showed me around the Recruit Depot one day. “You’ll never get rewarded for doing what’s easy for you. If you’re an athlete, I’ll never compliment you on a good run. Only the small guy gets congratulated for running fast. Only the shy guy gets recognized for stepping into a leadership role. We praise people for doing things that are hard. That’s how they learn to believe they can do them.

This may sound like too much regimentation for you, but whether it’s that or needed discipline depends on your point of view. If the chairman forces you to show up at a meeting prepared and on time, you might consider him a drill sergeant. But if you show up on time, ready to work, and someone else doesn’t and isn’t, you’ll probably begrudge the person responsible for wasting your time. It must be much the same in an operating room. Some people working there may not like a surgeon insisting upon precision, but I am one patient who would much prefer a disciplined operating room to any other kind. Once

What the hell is that?” The drill sergeant almost mumbled to himself. “I’ve never seen that piece of metal before in my life….

About twenty-eight hundred dogs serve in the US military.

thirty-five-woman team made up the first known all-female catapult crew in US military history.

Jax had been shocked—Mazz was the first white boy he had ever met that didn’t either try to spit on him or kill him. Being spat upon by their drill sergeants instead, they felt a kinship—both hated for their bloodline and both hailing from one of the greatest cities in the world.

He’s a drill sergeant,

So”—I swallow my mouthful—“you’re a skiing instructor. Riven is a doctor. What about Cole? Is he a gym teacher? Drill sergeant? Evil dictator?

I’d learned as a kid growing up in Fort Myers that the human body is pretty much waterproof and you could always dry off in the sun. Later, as a young Marine Lance Corporal, I had a Platoon Sergeant who drilled into us the phrase, “If it ain’t rainin’, you ain’t trainin.

Isn’t Gresham on the route to get to Colton and the Association’s farm is just down the road from there?” Lt. Vincent rubbed his hand over his face. “Yes, figured you would think of that. But it’s not enough.” “Not for a warrant, but it’s an indicator.” They stared at each other. “My captain just assigned two three-man detective teams to the murder.” “You must have more. What about descriptions of the men? Didn’t the people in the bank give you anything on them?” “Not much. One army sergeant said that four of them were young, moved quickly. The fifth one seemed older, a little heavier, maybe overweight. Only one man spoke, the old guy. The rest of them just waved guns and pointed to put the tellers and the customers down on the floor. “Oh, the first robbery was just before opening. They grabbed an employee who had just unlocked the front door, pushed her inside, all five rushed in and they locked the door behind them. So no customers to deal with. “The second robbery was just before closing time. Again they locked the front door then put everyone on the floor. Two of the men vaulted over the counter so quickly that the workers didn’t have time to press the alarm buttons. So there was no rush to finish the job.” “With military precision?” Matt asked. “Sounds like it. They left both banks by rear doors that are always locked so nobody saw them make their getaway except one guy in the alley who was painting the rear of his store. He was the one who got the plate on the Lincoln.” “You knew the dead guard?” “Yes. He had retired from the PD before I came, but that was my bank and I always talked to him when I went in there. A nice guy. Good cop. Damned sorry that he’s gone.” “What about this lady cop?” “She’s off at four. I’ll ask her if she can have a cup of coffee with us here about four fifteen. Her name is Tracy Landower. She’s barely big enough to be a cop. She stretches to make five-four, and must weigh about a hundred and ten. She’s strong as an anvil tester. Strong hands and arms, good shoulders and legs like a Marine drill sergeant. She runs marathons for fun.” “I won’t try to out run her.” “Good. She has short dark hair, a cute little pixie face, and eyes that can stare you right into the pavement.” “Sounds like a good cop. I’m anxious to meet her.”   CHAPTER FOUR   Anthony J. Carlton was an only child of parents who were comfortably fixed for money and lived in a modest sized town near Portland called Hillsboro. His father was a lawyer who had several clients on retainer, who took on some of the toughest defense cases in the county, and some in Portland. He was a no nonsense type of dad who had little time for his son who had a good school and a car of his own when he turned sixteen.

What the flip did I nickname him? Ah, yes, ‘the drill sergeant’.

Grizzled old Drill Sergeant Engler loved to prowl for nodders. He would close nose-to-nose before spit-yelling in some sandbagged face, or pull the chair from beneath the dozer, or throw a rubber ball at him while screaming, “Wake up, you effing re-re!” Effing re-re was a practical and apparently allowable

If rhetoric study was the military, grammar teachers would be the drill sergeants.

food on our trays. I grabbed my tray full of wonderful army chow and made my way over to an empty seat for breakfast. After sitting there eating with the other soldiers for a few minutes, I noticed a staff sergeant eyeballing me. A few minutes passed and he approached the table. The trainees around me immediately got uneasy; they weren’t sure what was going on. “Hey, Specialist, what are you doing here?” “I’m waiting to get assigned to a training battalion, Drill Sergeant.” “Oh, you’re a trainee? How long have you been here?” “I’ve been here almost a full week Drill Sergeant.” “I’ll check and see if we can find a unit for you. It’s better if we get you out of here and assigned to a unit, even if you have to attend a little bit of basic training.” “Roger that, Drill Sergeant.” The next day I found myself packing my bags and making my way to my

was the Civil War term for rookie. The idea was that some of the new recruits were of such fantastic greenness that they did not know the left foot from the right and hence could not be taught to keep time properly or to step off on the left foot as all soldiers should. The drill sergeants, in desperation, had finally realized that these green country lads did at least know hay from straw and so had tied wisps of hay to the left foot and straw to the right foot and marched them off to the chant of “Hay-foot, straw-foot, hay-foot, straw-foot.” Hence: straw-foot—rookie, especially a dumb rookie.)

We’d love to just be parents at home. I absolutely acknowledge the unreasonable demands put upon you (I used to be a teacher), but in the few hours a day we have with our children, we don’t want to be tutors, homework drill sergeants, project managers, and trauma counselors. We just want to be moms. Our children are in school seven hours a day, which is enough for a kid. It’s almost a full-time job. They should not endure another two hours of homework, especially assignments that are basically Parent Homework (don’t get me started).

So the drill sergeant says, ‘All you idiots fall out!’ All the soldiers took off and one stayed. So the drill sergeant walks over to the soldier and raises an eyebrow and the soldier says, ‘Sure was a lot of ‘em!

I've always been a contrarian of sorts. I'm not exactly sure where this quality comes from. I am among the approximately 13 percent of people who are left-handed, and a great deal has been written about the differences in the ways southpaws process ideas and motivations. In any event, always fitting in or going with the crowd has never been a big concern for me if my head and heart lay elsewhere. Admittedly, my inclination to stray from the pack didn't go over too well with my drill sergeant. My armed forces stint offered many lessons, one of which was that if I was to be successful as an individual in whatever I chose to do, I would have to work, and think, independently.

It’s okay to cry, and it’s okay to let those you love cry. When people we love are upset, we tend to want to help them respond differently. If that doesn’t work, then we try the drill-sergeant approach. My family’s favorite: “Let’s not shed any tears or have anyone upset.” We all know that grieving is healthy—we just don’t want anyone to do it. It makes us feel bad and helpless. As if we had the power to heal someone’s pain. I

Instead of adhering to his father’s commands, Donald had a new master, a gruff, barrel-chested combat veteran named Theodore Dobias. Dobias, or Doby as he was known, had served in World War II and had seen Mussolini’s dead body hanging by a rope. As the freshman-football coach and tactical-training instructor, Doby smacked students with an open hand if they ignored his instructions. Two afternoons a week, he would set up a boxing ring and order cadets with poor grades and those who had disciplinary problems to fight each other, whether they wanted to or not. “He could be a fucking prick,” Trump once recalled. “He absolutely would rough you up. You had to learn to survive.” To glare at Doby, or suggest the slightest sarcasm, Trump said, caused the drill sergeant to come “after me like you wouldn’t believe.” Whether

I knew your dad was the man for me because it didn’t matter if he took me to MacDonald’s or Hawaii, I was happiest when I was with him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw most of the kitchen staff standing in the small windows of the double doors beside him. La Bella Luna was full tonight, how was Paulie letting this happen? Weren't there dinners to prepare? Kane cocked a brow, turning inquisitively toward the window, only to see Paulie's smirking face gloating back at him. He had to be in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Drill Sergeant Paulie gave him a big grin and nodded him toward the table.

She’s either the house mom or the drill sergeant that you eventually like and respect, even after he’s removed his size eleven boot from your ass.

Just a few days before, Jason had been part of the noisy street- scape, trying to talk to his aunt Joyce back in Shakopee, Minnesota. To avoid the blaring traffic and techno music, he’d ducked into a quiet construction site, phone pressed against his ear, eyes on his shoes. That was when a hard punch connected with his cheekbone. The phone went flying. Probably the worst text I’ve ever gotten was the one line, Jason’s been mugged. Accounting it later, he would say his military training must have kicked in. “Before I could think about it, I’d kicked the legs out from under one of the guys.” And that was when he said it. Jason uttered a phrase so outrageous, so utterly shameless, it can be used only once per life- time, and until then stored in a special box sternly labeled, In case of emergency, break glass. “It’s terrible; it’s right out of a Steven Seagal direct-to-VHS movie,” he admitted, as I coaxed the story out of him again. “Well, I mustered up my army drill sergeant voice and I barked, ‘Motherf*cker! You want a piece of me?’” Jason claims the second it came out of his mouth, he was already embarrassed. Embarrassed in front of what turned out to be teen boys, kids really, who clearly didn’t speak English. They ran off with his phone and Jason found his way back to Brian’s hospital room with a headache, a purple contusion, and a strong will to get his brother well—and the hell out of Asia.

Teaching about something real and important is more effective in creating an orderly, disciplined classroom environment than acting like a drill sergeant...It took some experimenting to see that discipline is not a question of bossing students but of providing interesting, challenging material and helping them meet the challenge.

he reminded me of a drill sergeant. He was all listen, look, and don't talk. The “don't talk” part was my biggest weakness.

No! It needs a man to plant daffodils. An enormous man with bulging muscles, large nostrils, few morals, and absolutely no pity. He has to be as callous as a mathematician, as orderly as a drill sergeant-major, and as cynical as a political agent.

Rihanna was an army cadet that trained with the Barbadian military. Fellow singer Shontelle was her drill sergeant.

I hand out a number of compliments, and all of them are designed to be unexpected,” said Sergeant Dennis Joy, a thoroughly intimidating drill instructor who showed me around the Recruit Depot one day. “You’ll never get rewarded for doing what’s easy for you. If you’re an athlete, I’ll never compliment you on a good run. Only the small guy gets congratulated for running fast. Only the shy guy gets recognized for stepping into a leadership role. We praise people for doing things that are hard. That’s how they learn to believe they can do them.

She’s firing orders at me, and I’m beginning to realize that this isn’t just a kitchen. This is the army, and Nonna is the drill sergeant.

There are two ways to approach the role of new stepdad: You can go the friendly route—soft-pedal, build some trust. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to replace your dad. Or you can seize the opportunity to lead that totalitarian regime you’ve always dreamed of. I am your parent! You will respect me! Clyde opted for the latter. He immediately instated something he called Heavy Chore Day—aka, Saturday. Like Sunday Mass, attendance was mandatory but HCD lasted much longer. The whole family was up and working by 0800 and the workday lasted eight hours. Duties were segregated between men’s work (in the yard) and women’s work (in the house). If there were any holdover friends from a Friday night sleepover, they were welcome to stay, “but if you’re here, you need to contribute.” Our friends quickly learned to request early pickup times. Clyde’s vibe was all drill sergeant. “Police the lawn for anything that ain’t grass or dog shit. Shovel the dog shit. After you mow, edge the perimeter.” Half the jobs didn’t even make sense: “Move this pile of rocks to the other end of the yard. Dig a hole over here, cart the dirt in the wheelbarrow over there and make a dirt hill.

When asses start to rise from chairs, the Disney siblings transform into drill sergeants. They both blow the whistles hanging around their necks.

One day, as we formed for breakfast, the drill sergeant checked our faces to see if we had what he called “a good Army shave.” We didn’t, and he sent us back until we had shaved so close we had razor nicks all over our faces. For the first drill, we assembled in a field of tents. We were told to put on gas masks and go into one of the tents, where a metal trash can was pumping out tear gas. We were ordered to remove our masks and give our name, rank, and serial number. As soon as you took off your mask, the razor cuts started to burn, like someone had thrown acid on your face. If you were lucky, you got your name and rank right. But everyone lost control and began to cough violently before spitting out our serial numbers.

You just had to remember it was all make-believe. The drill sergeants were just pretending to be drill sergeants. We were pretending to be soldiers. The Army was pretending to be the Army.

drill sergeants of hatred, the go-getters of intolerance, the high powered salesmen of bigotry,

Arrow, a famous boat-train connecting London and Dover. A woman named Rebecca Steward, who appeared to be Mrs. Carmichael’s chatelaine/drill sergeant, coordinated moving the luggage. Also present was a Miss Pamela Verrall, Mrs. Carmichael’s private secretary.

The larger point I want to make here is that any approach that increases your inner drill sergeant’s impulse to shame you into behaving (and make you feel like a failure if you can’t) will do no better in internal families than it does in external ones in which parents adopt shaming tactics to control their children.

1.          They were perfect… initially. We’ve discussed this one, but it’s worth mentioning again. A narcissist wants you to believe they’re totally into you and put you on a pedestal. Once they have you, though, they stop trying as hard and you end up being the one working to keep them. 2.          Others don’t see the narcissist the way you do. It’s hard enough to see it yourself, but when those around you, especially their friends and family, make excuses for them, you start doubting yourself even more. Stick to what you see. 3.          They’re making you look bad. In order to maintain their facade of perfection, they make you look like a bad person. Usually this involves spreading rumors, criticizing you behind your back, or creating lies you supposedly told. The worst part is that when you try rectifying the situation, or laying the blame where it should belong, the narcissist uses your defense to back their own lies. It’s frustrating because the generous, wonderful person they displayed initially is what those around you still see, even if you see them for who they really are. 4.          You feel symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. The toxic person may have caused you to worry about not acting the way you’re expected to, or that you haven’t done something right or good enough. In making this person your entire world, you may lose sleep, have no interest in things you used to or have developed a, “What’s the point?” attitude. You essentially absorb all of the negative talk and treatment so deeply, you believe it all. This is a dangerous mindset to be in so if you feel you’re going any steps down this path, seek outside help as soon as possible. 5.          You have unexplained physical ailments. It’s not surprising that when you internalize a great deal of negativity, you begin to feel unwell. Some common symptoms that aren’t related to any ongoing condition might be: changes in appetite, stomach issues, body aches, insomnia, and fatigue. These are typical bodily responses to stress, but if they intensify or become chronic, see a physician as soon as you can. 6.          You feel alone. Also a common symptom of abuse. If things are really wrong, the narcissist may have isolated you from friends or family either by things they’ve done themselves or by making you believe no one is there for you. 7.          You freeze. When you emotionally remove yourself from the abuse, you’re freezing. It’s a coping mechanism to reduce the intensity of the way you’re being treated by numbing out the pain. 8.          You don’t trust yourself even with simple decisions. When your self-esteem has been crushed through devaluing and criticism, it’s no wonder you can’t make decisions. If you’re also being gaslighted, it adds another layer of self-doubt. 9.          You can’t make boundaries. The narcissist doesn’t have any, nor do they respect them, which is why it’s difficult to keep them away even after you’ve managed to get away. Setting boundaries will be discussed in greater detail in an upcoming chapter. 10.    You lost touch with the real you. The person you become when with a narcissistic abuser is very different from the person you were before you got involved with them. They’ve turned you into who they want you to be, making you feel lost and insecure with no sense of true purpose. 11.    You never feel like you do anything right. We touched on this briefly above, but this is one of the main signs of narcissistic abuse. Looking at the big picture, you may be constantly blamed when things go wrong even when it isn’t your fault. You may do something exactly the way they tell you to, but they still find fault with the results. It’s similar to how a Private feels never knowing when the Drill Sergeant will find fault in their efforts. 12.    You walk on eggshells. This happens when you try avoiding any sort of conflict, maltreatment or backlash by going above and beyond to make the abuser happy.

New members signed enlistment papers as if in an army. The groups were organized into companies and battalions, with their own sergeants, lieutenants, and captains, each wearing appropriately fancier versions of the Wide Awake uniform. These officers, many of them veterans of the Mexican War, taught enlistees formal military drill using official army handbooks.

The molecules of a liquid roam all over. Think of the water molecules in the tub as a platoon of cadets running randomly around a practice field. When the temperature drops below freezing, it’s as if a drill sergeant blew a whistle and the cadets suddenly snapped into formation. The rigid order of the solid repels the hammer. The chaotic disorder of the liquid lets it slip through. Systems snap when the tide turns in a microscopic tug-of-war. Binding forces try to lock water molecules into rigid formation. Entropy, the tendency of systems to become more disordered, encourages those molecules to roam. As temperature decreases, binding forces get stronger and entropy forces get weaker. When the strengths of those two forces cross, the system snaps. Water freezes.

The distinguished delegate from Obregon had even wanted to allocate funds to develop a new non drill sergeant–based boot camp, replacing the fundamental training overseer since time immemorial with a new kind of instructor called a “military lifestyle and career coach.

AHHHHHHHH!” “NAP TIME’S OVER, MAGGOT!” The two eyes were attached to a snarling drill sergeant who seemed just like the most furious person ever. I tried backing away. “Look, I don’t… This is a big… OK, listen, if you just call my mom…” The drill sergeant did not seem interested in clearing things up with Mrs. Rigsby. Instead, he picked me up by the neck just like a bully on TV would. “Listen maggot, I don’t know how you got that blaster attached to your arm, but it’s there now, and we’re going to use it to…” The what attached to my what? I looked down. A blaster. Attached to my arm. Where my left hand should be. “AHHHHHHHHHH!” My screaming did nothing to stop the drill sergeant from continuing his little speech. “…Blast the alien scum back to whatever rock they came from. You are humanity’s only hope for…” “AHHHHHHHHHH!” “…This planet. Your mission will be long, your mission

Our Marine drill sergeant was the most professional looking soldier I have ever seen. His uniform was so perfectly pressed and starched that he looked like one of those full-size cardboard Marines propped up in the window of the Marine Corps Recruiting Centers. Our instructor was African-American but wasn’t the least bit intimidated by this unruly and disrespectful group of white guys. He was accustomed to training officer candidates who had no official rank, but instructing a class of commissioned officers who all out-ranked him didn’t seem to soften his techniques. He was extremely serious and barked out all of his commands, which got the attention of even the most disruptive members of our group. He knew we were all officers on paper and that his job was to make us start looking and acting like officers." (page 137)

I hand out a number of compliments, and all of them are designed to be unexpected,” said Sergeant Dennis Joy, a thoroughly intimidating drill instructor who showed me around the Recruit Depot one day. “You’ll never get rewarded for doing what’s easy for you. If you’re an athlete, I’ll never compliment you on a good run. Only the small guy gets congratulated for running fast. Only the shy guy gets recognized for stepping into a leadership role.

If she hadn’t adopted the hippie lifestyle, she would have made a terrific Marine drill sergeant.

Sergeant Dix told me that at Fort Bragg they found that two to three days of constant tension was what it took to figure out if a soldier was going to break. Most who made it to the Special Forces Qualification Course could take anything the Army cared to throw at them for forty-eight hours. But by day three, with reserves depleted and nothing but misery on the horizon, a soldier’s core became exposed. His baseline ability. His essence. Superficially, this was evidenced by the decision to quit or continue, a temptation the drill sergeants dangled every time they spoke.  The real game, of course, was mental. Beating the Q boiled down to a soldier’s ability to disassociate his body from his mind, his being from his circumstance. This was relatively easy during the mindless procedures — the hikes, runs, and repetitive drills that form the backbone of military training. Disassociation became much tougher, however, when the physical activity was paired with judgment calls and problem solving. If a soldier could engage his higher-order thinking while simultaneously ignoring the pain and willing his body to continue beyond fatigue, then he had a chance at making it to the end. If he couldn’t, then the strength of his back, heart, and lungs didn’t matter.  Dix had concluded that the Q-Course was as much about self-discovery as a prestigious shoulder patch.  Katya was in that discovery phase now.  The big question was what we’d do if she decided to quit. She broke the silence after a few miles. “Do you ever get used to it?” “The killing?” “Yes.” “We’re all used to killing — just not people. We kill when we spray for bugs, or squash a spider, or buy a leather bag, or order a hamburger. I don’t think of the individuals I’ve killed as people any more than you thought of the last steak you ate as Bessie.

Wallace, Joseph, Joshua, and Peter!” yelled Mother, and she sounded like a drill sergeant. She sounded like a drill sergeant who had just discovered that someone had made off with a pumpkin chiffon pie. A pumpkin chiffon pie made by somebody’s own hands from a recipe of someone’s great-aunt Minna. The boys moved reluctantly into the hall from the living room and stood with feet poised as though ready to run the other way. “What,” said Mrs. Hatford slowly, taking off her sweater, “happened to a certain pumpkin chiffon pie baked by Mrs. Malloy and delivered to our very door a month ago?” Peter looked at Wally, Wally at Josh, Josh at Jake, and Jake looked down at his knees. “We ate it,” he said. “Ate it? All of it? The four of you?” The boys nodded, all four of them. “Why? Why didn’t you save any for dinner? Why did you go out and buy a pie from Ethel’s Bakery, and try to make me think that was the pie Mrs. Malloy sent? I even thanked her for a bakery pie! I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life.” She looked sternly at the boys. “Jake? . . . Josh? . . . Wally . . . ?” Wally couldn’t stand it any longer. “We destroyed it,” he said. Mother continued to stare. “I can’t believe this.” “We were looking for dog doo,” added Peter. “What?” cried Mother. “Have you boys gone stark raving mad?” “We thought the girls might have baked the pie and put something awful in it,” muttered Josh. “Why would those three sweet girls do something like that?” “Easy,” cried Jake. “Very easy. I could see the Malloy girls doing about anything you could think of.” “Sweet? Ha!” said Josh. “Remember,” Wally reminded her, “they threw your cake in the river.” Mrs. Hatford shook her head. “That I don’t understand at all. Something must have happened to make them do that. What did they think was possibly inside that box?” “Dead birds,” said Peter. “What?” “Ellen, quit while you’re ahead,” Mr. Hatford said from the dining room, gobbling down his lunch before he delivered the afternoon mail. “The more you ask, the more they’ll tell you, and the more you find out, the more upset you’re going to be.

The poet Adrienne Rich wrote in a 1973 essay, toward the end of the Vietnam War: Rape has always been a part of war; and rape in war may be an act of vengeance on the male enemy "whose" women are thus used... Rape [has been] used as a bribe to the peasants being impressed for service, as one of the perquisites of the military: as part of an invading army one has carte blanche to loot property and rape women ... Rape is a part of war; but it may be more accurate to say that the capacity for dehumanizing another which so corrodes male sexuality is carried over from sex into war. The chant of the basic training drill" This is my rifle, this is my gun [cock]; This is for killing, this is for fun" is not a piece of bizarre brainwashing invented by some infantry sergeant's fertile imagination; it is a recognition of the fact that when you strike the chord of sexuality in the ... [male] psyche, the chord of violence is like to vibrate in response; and vice versa.

David Batkins has worked in law enforcement for 40 years and has completed a fantastic range of training and certifications over this time. (When you think about a drill sergeant, a drill sergeant expects you to perform your best, and if you don't, they're going to stay on you until you do.)

I oughtn’t to have eaten so much,” Richard groaned, laying a hand on his slim midsection. “Not when I am not marching to burn it off.” “You might march, if you wish,” Darcy remarked, from his seat in the corner. “Rise with the rooster and plot a route around the grounds. I shall give Georgiana leave to heckle you, if you are missing regimental life so sorely.” Richard grinned. “Thank you, no. I have been on the receiving end of Georgiana’s heckling before and she is a crueller drill-sergeant than any who wears colours. No, I shall embark on some easier exercise, I think. Perhaps a ride.

All at once, however, and quick as the change of a kaleidoscope, this parallelism was terminated,—not as regarded each other, but with respect to the course of the Catamaran By a single flutter of their tails, the whole school was seen simultaneously turning head towards the craft; and then, like a flash of lightning, they passed underneath. For a moment they were out of sight; but in the next they appeared on the starboard beam, swimming parallel as before, both to the course of the Catamaran and to each other. The manoeuvre was executed with such precision and uniformity, as could not be imitated among men,—even under the tuition of the ablest drill-sergeant that ever existed. They swerved from right to left, as if each and all were actuated by the same impulse, and at the same instant of time. At the same instant their tails made a movement in the water,—at precisely the same point of time they turned together,—showing a list of its silvery abdomen, and with like simultaneous action did they dive under the keel of the Catamaran.