Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Rest Easy, Gunny
R. Lee Ermey, USMC drill instructor, bordello owner, Golden Globe nominated actor and TV host is dead at age 74.
Statement from R. Lee Ermey’s long time manager, Bill Rogin: “It is with deep sadness that I regret to inform you all that R. Lee Ermey (“The Gunny”) passed away this morning from complications of pneumonia. He will be greatly missed by all of us.”
After an 11-year stint, which included training new recruits at USMCRD – San Diego and 14 months in-country in Vietnam, Ermey was separated from the Corps for injuries. “After medical retirement… I didn’t know what to do, so I bought a run-down bar and whorehouse in Okinawa. I was doing a little black-marketing and the Okinawan FBI was hot on my trail, so I boogied on out to the Philippines.”
There he met Francis Ford Coppola who cast him as a helicopter pilot in 1979’s Apocalypse Now. But it was Stanley Kubrick who made him a star by upping his technical advisor to the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. Having been a D.I., he wrote his own material and received very little direction from Kubrick.
The language was pure Corps of the 1970s. None of the best lines can be quoted here. (In one of the best all-time edit jobs, Sgt. Hartman’s rants were put to footage of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in a piece called Full Metal Parka. Go ahead and Google it.)
Ermey had retired as a Staff Sergeant but was made an honorary Gunny by the Commandant of the Marine Corps General James L. Jones for his service to the Corps in 2002, the only time that has been done.
His career was sidetracked when he criticized President Barack Obama at a Toys for Tots fundraiser in 2010. “We should all rise up, and we should stop this administration from what they’re doing because they’re destroying this country. They’re driving us into bankruptcy so that they can impose socialism on us, and that’s exactly what they’re doing, and I’m sick and damn tired of it and I know you are too.” He lost a GEICO contract because of it and consequently lost out on a lot of other work, too.
”I don’t know what it is with these idiots down there in Hollyweird. They just have no taste.”
.
Published in Culture
Dammit. Piece by piece, the world gets less interesting.
Godspeed Gunny! RIP …
I’d love to post a clip of Ermey’s epic performance in Full Metal Jacket, but they’re all NSFW.
a great loss. sad for us but at least now he can talk sea-stories with the street’s guards in heaven.
from the 3rd verse of the USMC hymn with minor edits:
Fair Winds and Following Seas, Gunny, till you’re safely Ashore…(note the Marine verse [J. E. Seim, 1966] in this version).
Here’s one that’s mostly PG:
I went through basic training in the Air Force, which is much less strenuous and less colorful than the Marine Corps but it was pretty close to “Full Metal Jacket” in tone. That was in 1959 and I’m sure it is unrecognizable now. What a shame! Especially the story of him being punished by the SJWs.
God speed, Gunny.
I haven’t seen it, but I believe his first role was in “The Boys of Company C.” It predates “Full Metal Jacket” by nine years.
A friend of mine, Jerry, is a former United States Marine. When Full Metal Jacket came out he watched it with his wife. After watching Ermey’s performance, Jerry said to his wife, “That’s not an actor. That’s a real drill instructor!” His wife asked, “How do you know that?”
Jerry replied, “Believe me. I know!”
R.I.P.
God speed. I’m sure you’re with good, good friends. With stories to tell. xo
He was a hot ticket as the guest speaker for the Marine Corps (pro tip: the S is silent) Birthday Ball. I know because I was the ‘Ball’ coordinator (oh joy!) one year and I tried to get him but too late, he had already committed to another unit. As I recall, he was also a cheap date and would not accept plane fair, per diem, honorarium, etc., from the unit that he spoke to – unlike the majority of our public servants.
He was much beloved by his beloved Corps.
RIP Gunny.
Well done, Gunny! Rest easy.
Ermey on his early film career and FMJ:
I prefer to believe that the movie ended after the murder/suicide scene. There’s just no point in watching after that.
Finally someone says out loud what have been thinking since I first saw the movie.
I didn’t care for that scene myself. At some point in boot camp a troubled soul will be classified as not suitable for military life and sent back home on the bus.
Not always. A guy in my older brothers’s (USMC) platoon hung himself (to death).
Gunny’s Rules just landed on my Kindle; should we Skype-chat watch FMJ, folks? The Church-Lady/Chaplain-Panda/Jarine should probably watch it, yes/no? If the Gunny made sure it was “real”, how “true” was it?
Jerry, born in 1946, told me there was a time that when a young man got into trouble with the law, he might be given two choices: jail or the United States Marine Corps. In Jerry’s opinion, the smart ones picked jail.
In Full Medal Jacket the only officer presented in a positive light was a Notre Dame Marine Officer. Sadly he was killed very soon after meeting him.
Appreciate the context, @skyler! It’s probably good to remember that the director and others may not have shared the Gunny’s understanding and affection.
Rest easy, indeed. He and men like him made and make it possible for the rest of us to do so.
Requiescat in pace.
Here’s a Picture of the Gunny and I at a meet and greet at a WWII reenactment weekend from a long time ago. RIP
May I ask who you did get to speak for that particular ‘Ball’? And were you “voluntold” for the task? :-)