Are these sentences okay or is it too "harsh"?

[Ivonia]

I introduced a drill sergeant character into my story, and to stick to the "character" of a drill sergeant, he's going to be loud and he's going to say mean things to the recruits.

I was thinking about this particular sentence, which the drill sergeant will say at various points throughout the training.

The drill sergeant pointed his finger at the recruits and moved it around as he spoke to the current batch of recruits."Now let's get one thing straight!" he yelled, "I'm not the prejudice type! I hate each and everyone of you equally!"

Having gone through US Army Basic Training, I've actually heard a drill sergeant say this to us, but I found it to be quite hiliarious (both in meaning and the way he said it). Some of them did moan about how they couldn't use certain words anymore because of "political correctness".

Do you think people will get offended by those sentences if I put this in my story? I'm not terribly concerned about being too politically correct (I won't use swear words or anything like that though), but I also want this particular drill sergeant to be seen as a tough character, whose job is to turn a bunch of unkempt recruits into a well disciplined, effective killing machines (I knew my army training would come to more use hehe).

To make those words mean even more, the good guys (including the hero) are anthropomorphic dinosaurs (called Ivonians, hence my username :D , and yes, there's a history to why they're called that), and come in various shapes and sizes. They are fighting alongside the Avians, a species of anthropomorphic birds, against the "Scalians" a species of anthropomorphic snakes.

"Now," the drill sergeant continued, "Don't get me wrong. The Scalians are a bunch of tough bastards. But I'm even tougher! I eat Scalians for breakfast! The Avians think they can have all the fun? Well, we're going to show them that Ivonians can put up just as much of a fight as they can! Soon I'll turn all of you from a bunch of worthless maggots into an army of Scalian slaying machines!"

Yeah, yeah, I know, long speech, but drill sergeants are known to make long speeches :wag:

[James D. Macdonald]

No, that isn't too harsh.

[reph]

But the following changes are needed:

"I'm not the prejudice type!

"I'm not the prejudiced type!

I hate each and everyone of you equally!"

I hate each and every one of you equally!"

You might also take another look at the first sentence, maybe try reading it aloud and listening to its sound. Ending both parts with "recruits" gives extra emphasis to the word. The reader's attention will be drawn to that instead of your message.

[Rose]

The drill sergeant pointed his finger at the recruits and moved it around as he spoke to the current batch of recruits."Now let's get one thing straight!" he yelled, "I'm not the prejudice type! I hate each and everyone of you equally!"
Reph's right on. The use of "recruits" twice in that sentence jumped right out at me, too. Two possible rewrites are:
The drill sergeant pointed his finger at the current batch of recruits and moved it around as he spoke (to them).

As for the prejudice / prejudiced thing, I thought you MEANT to say it that way, thus commenting on the drill sergeant's (lack of) education. It stands out, so it works if that was your intention!

[Ella]

I took no offense. Thought it was quite funny!

I'm not sure what the finger is doing. Stabbing with each word? Wriggling? For me, it lost impact because I envisioned it doing a dance. :)

[brokenfingers]

I introduced a drill sergeant character into my story, and to stick to the "character" of a drill sergeant, he's going to be loud and he's going to say mean things to the recruits.

I was thinking about this particular sentence, which the drill sergeant will say at various points throughout the training.

The drill sergeant pointed his finger at the recruits and moved it around as he spoke to the current batch of recruits."Now let's get one thing straight!" he yelled, "I'm not the prejudice type! I hate each and everyone of you equally!"

Having gone through US Army Basic Training, I've actually heard a drill sergeant say this to us, but I found it to be quite hiliarious (both in meaning and the way he said it). Some of them did moan about how they couldn't use certain words anymore because of "political correctness".

Do you think people will get offended by those sentences if I put this in my story? I'm not terribly concerned about being too politically correct (I won't use swear words or anything like that though), but I also want this particular drill sergeant to be seen as a tough character, whose job is to turn a bunch of unkempt recruits into a well disciplined, effective killing machines (I knew my army training would come to more use hehe).

To make those words mean even more, the good guys (including the hero) are anthropomorphic dinosaurs (called Ivonians, hence my username :D , and yes, there's a history to why they're called that), and come in various shapes and sizes. They are fighting alongside the Avians, a species of anthropomorphic birds, against the "Scalians" a species of anthropomorphic snakes.

"Now," the drill sergeant continued, "Don't get me wrong. The Scalians are a bunch of tough bastards. But I'm even tougher! I eat Scalians for breakfast! The Avians think they can have all the fun? Well, we're going to show them that Ivonians can put up just as much of a fight as they can! Soon I'll turn all of you from a bunch of worthless maggots into an army of Scalian slaying machines!"

Yeah, yeah, I know, long speech, but drill sergeants are known to make long speeches :wag:

I don't understand this question.

Isn't the character harsh?

Isn't he a man who is blunt, outspoken, determined, harsh and unyielding in his pursuit to make each of those recruits the best they can be so they will survive what is to come?

Doesn't he feel that it is better that his verbal harshness weed out those who will not be able to accept the true harshness of war? Is he not training these people to kill and survive???

Who cares if the reader likes him? I know he doesn't care! He will do and say whatever he has to - no matter what the consequences. That's who he is.

And as an aside, I am an ex-Marine and believe me - that is not harsh...

[mdmkay]

I have to agree with the others. I have never heard of a drill sergeant having manners.......isn't that an oxymoron???????? Looks like you have this up and running with gas......keep up the good work. Oh, wait a minute I forgot something. The one thing I did notice was the use of profanity. In a YA that is NO problem as far as I'm concerned, but, I did want to ask what age group you were writing for? It sound like YA but I thought I'd ask.

[tjwriter]

The drill sergeant pointed his finger at the recruits and moved it around as he spoke to the current batch of recruits."Now let's get one thing straight!" he yelled, "I'm not the prejudice type! I hate each and everyone of you equally!"


Perhaps I would change the first sentence to read:

The drill sergeant pointed his finger [at them?] and moved it around as he spoke to the current batch of recruits.

As for your question, I don't think it sounds too harsh at all. I could think of many tongue lashings that are far more severe. It actually sounds just about right. I don't know how it fits to the overall tone of your story, but if you are going for harsh, I would say you hit right on the lighter side of it.

The PC stuff is just too much for me to worry about. Personally, it's a load of crap. That's another rant for another forum.

Good luck with your story.

[Fractured_Chaos]

I say be true to your character.

People are harsh, argumentative, prejudiced, and just plain nasty. They're people. Characters, in order to be at least somewhat believable, need to reflect that, too. After all, how many people are going to believe a soft-spoken, always polite and politically correct Drill Sgt?


....

Well, okay, how many people in the US? I was politely reminded that a friend of mine served in the Swedish Army a few years ago, and apparently their basic training is nothing like ours.


:o Sorry to make an assumption, there.

[veinglory]

I don't understand how that would cause any offense? It doesn't express any non-PC idea.

[McCann]

Watch Full Metal Jacket and listen to that drill sergeant. The actor was a real drill sergeant before he was in that movie, so it was very realistic for it's time period. That particular speech was indeed peppered with various racial slurs and other insults. It was crude rude and nasty. But the point of the speech was to begin tearing the requits down to zero. Then they could build them back up again. Now the sergeants aren't allowed to use racial slurs, etc.. It sounds like you are writing in the future, so what is the culture like then?

Also, almost every single war book I've read has the sergeant insulting the enemy in lots of derogatory ways.

I expect drill segeants to be rude/crude. They are supposed to be nasty and in your face.

One point I suppose you should think is whether you WANT your readers to think he is too mean/nasty. Write what you want your sergeant to sound like. Your editor could always tell you to tone it down if it is too "over the top".

?

[SRHowen]

Too many exclaimation points.

Shawn

[Liam Jackson]

The roll of a DI is multifacted, but he/she has one primary goal- To tear down the "individual" and remold that person into the ultimate team player.
The DI is given a bunch of kids who have little or no idea that team work (in the military concept) is the key to survival on the battlefield.

This is something of a traditional DI greeting to new recruits:
http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/di/Diyell.gif

From the moment a recruit gets off the bus, he/she hears, "You people are the lowest form of animal life in the universe, you are even lower than whale shit, do you know how low that is? At the bottom of the ocean!" The remodeling job begins.

Now, with the image above firmly in mind, write the scene of the DI waving his finger in the faces of his new platoon. :Thumbs:

[fallenangelwriter]

There's nothing offensive about "hating everyone equally".

[Ivonia]

Thanks for the advice guys. Again, keep in mind the last part of my message (in that these are not humans I'm writing about), so that the message just rings even more true hehe.

If you have any other advice/suggestions, feel free to post them.

And Liam, ugh, that picture is bringing back memories of basic training (although I was in the Army, the only difference probably was the uniform, otherwise it's still the same lol). Curse you for bringing it up hehe. *shakes fist*

[NeuroFizz]

Okay, this one brought back a flood of memories. First of all, the term “recruits” is dropped once uniforms are issued. From that minute on, the individuals are known as “troops”. Troop is the official name of each person until the DI either learns the person’s real name (a bad thing), or gives a nickname. My friend was 6’5,” so he was known as “big man.” Another was a college graduate—he was “college man, and give me twenty.”



Drill Instructors work through intimidation, mostly because it’s the nature of the business. As Liam said, their job is to break the troops down (mentally and physically) and re-build them into soldiers. A successful DI will be physically fit and equally mentally sharp. He/she has to deal with a multitude of personalities without a blink of hesitation. An honest-to-goodness example from my experience:



DI to trouble-maker troop: “What were you before my world?”

Troop: “A pimp.” [presumably trying to impress the rest of us]

DI: “You’re too ugly to be a pimp.”



A good DI has a large repertoire of automatic insults, and an ability to come up with others without hesitation. Also, note the “my world” my DI frequently alluded to. Those two words say volumes about the situation.



As for the DI’s language, think of this relationship like that between a cowboy and a wild horse. While breaking the bronco, you won’t hear the cowboy say something like, “Wow. This is some ride. But it’s all for the best.” You’ll hear a string of expletives from a mixture of excitement and fear, pixilated by flying strings of tobacco juice (or snot if you want to grit it down). So, when the DI speaks, use short, choppy sentences, incomplete sentences. Have him shove his face inches from the troop’s face. Like the cowboy, let spittle fly.



“Don’t blink when I talk to you.” He swung his head around. “Don’t even think about blinking when I talk to you.”



Don’t have him poke his finger around in the air, have him violate the no-physical-contact rule by stabbing his finger into the above-pocket name tag while he recites the troop’s name. “Don’t pull from me, boy.”



Finally, in agreement with an earlier comment—trash every one of the exclamation points. If you have to use an exclamation point, you have failed in properly selecting your dialog/prose combination. I’ve been told that the exclamation point shouldn’t exist on my keyboard.



Now, since you are dealing with a unique world, you can have the DI be anything and anyway you want. If there is a New Order for training recruits, you have to give it to the readers, but the best way is to have your DI be a throw-back, frequently called in for bending the rules. That way, you’ve accomplished two goals—you’ve shown the New Order rules at the same time you’ve created tension with one of your characters.



This whole DI stuff goes beyond panning for dust—there are nuggets there. You’re on your way to mining it. Good topic and good start. Get out the pick.



One more thing. In basic training, there is individual punishment, group punishment, and punishment given to innocent troops due to a trouble-maker’s transgressions. Guess which one is the most effective?



Cheers to all from a new contributor.

[Liam Jackson]

In 1975, we were all "recruits" until after the first wash out, about 6 days into boot. (While we weren't being pukes, whale shit, maggots, Too pretty, too ugly, too stupid, and a few other desriptive terms unfit for mixed company) Then, the party started. Nothing ever hurt so good. :)

In the piece Ivonia is working on, it'll be interesting to see how non-human DIs differ from their human counter-parts.

[Mark Anderson]

The guiding rule of DIs is to break down the recruits before building them up. Humiliation, sleep deprivation, insults, screaming, personal space violations. In the 80's at least the DIs had the filthiest mouths I ever heard in my life, and weren't above encouraging the platoon to focus on a weak member for an after-hours blanket party in order to build up cohesiveness.

Given that it's a sci-fi story, you have to make sure it fits the plot of the story, but to make effective human troops at least, you have to tear down before building up.

Or so sayeth my DIs. :)