Zitat des Tages von R. Lee Ermey:
Back in the old Corp, we weren't training those privates to infiltrate into the peacetime Marine Corp. We were training those privates to go to Vietnam.
There was a huge, tremendous amount of disabled veterans and the Veteran's Administration just wasn't geared up for it. I know for a fact that it's getting better and better.
Kubrick ate it up. He loved it. He just let me go crazy.
I got space from Travis Air Force Base, went back to the Philippine Islands and made it a point to meet the only American casting director in the Philippines. I was off and running.
I was stationed at a marine recruit depot in San Diego from 1965 to 1967.
Without discipline, there is no Marine Corps.
I firmly believe that you live and learn, and if you don't learn from past mistakes, then you need to be drug out and shot.
I go the VA Hospital when I have a problem and the doctor jumps on me.
There's a lot of whiners in every crowd.
That's all I cared about too, was getting it right.
You'd be surprised how many kids and young people come to the website and send me email that they are actually going into the Marine Corp because of something that I said or did.
I don't have any respect at all for the scum-bags who went to Canada to avoid the draft or to avoid doing their fair share.
When you try to find funding for a VVA function, it doesn't seem like it's any trouble at all. People come out of the woodwork with their money to help out because we went over and fought a war.
I got to write most of everything I said.
The best part about the movie, and everybody seems to rave about it, is the boot camp part.
America's trying to do the best for its veterans.
We had times in '66 and '67 when we would pick up a platoon of privates out of the receiving barracks the week before we even graduated the platoon that we were on!
Even though I disagree with many of the changes, when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day, when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony, they are still fine privates; outstanding, well motivated privates.
The bad news motivated the drill instructors that much more.
It's been a pretty fun ride, to tell you the truth.
Kubrick's films have life - they just never die.
I honestly do feel that I am a role model for young people.
Back in those days intimidation was the greatest tool the drill instructor had. Without that tool, he would not have had control.
There have been a lot of changes in recruit training in the past twenty years.
I try to get over to Iraq and Afghanistan as much as I can.
I don't have to be concerned about everybody else's character.