Do I make you nervous?
Sir!!
Sir what? Were you about to call me an asshole?
Sir, no, sir!!
How tall are you, Private?
Sir, 5 foot 9, sir!!
5 foot 9, I didn't know they stacked shit so high!!

If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon, you will be a minister of death praying for war!! But until that day, you are pukes, you are the lowest form of life on earth, you're not even human f***ing beings!!

You are noting but unorganised grabbastic pieces of amphibian shit!! Because I am hard, you will not like me, but the more you hate me, the more you will learn!! I am hard but I am fair!! There is no racial bigotry here!! I do not look down on niggers, wasps, or greasers!! Here you are all equally worthless!!

And so went the immortal lines from Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket. Many actors playing drill sergeants after have tried to follow in his footsteps, but none have matched the intensity and ferocity with which R. Lee Ermey delivered these lines.

Hear Robert de Niro in Men of Honour with his "I am Master Diver Billy Sunday, and I am God" shtick, triple that and you'll know what I mean. The fiercest drill sergeant there ever was, R. Lee Ermey.

Background: Ermey spent eleven years in the Marine Corps, which included one-and-a-half tours in Vietnam. He rose to the rank of gunnery sergeant and was medically retired for injuries received. Using G.I. Bill benefits, Ermey enrolled at the University of Manila in the Philippines, where he studied drama. Francis Ford Coppola was filming "Apocalypse Now" in the area and cast Ermey in a featured role.

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