Clint Eastwood credited as playing...
Gunnery Sergent Thomas Highway
- Jail Binger: I don't like soldier boys.
- Highway: Say what?
- Jail Binger: If you wanna pop that puppy's can you don't have to grease him so hard, jarhead.
- Highway: Well, it sounds like you're a man of experience.
- Jail Binger: What the hell's that supposed to mean, grunge shit.
- Highway: It means: Be advised. I'm mean, nasty and tired. I eat concertina wire and piss napalm and I can put a round in a flea's ass at 200 meters. So why don't you go hump somebody else's leg, mutt face, before I push yours in.
- Jail Binger: Ain't gonna be so smart with your balls stuffed in your mouth, jarhead!
- Highway: [hands cigar to the young man] Hang on to this, boy. I think war's just been declared.
- Judge Zane: Thank you for your testimony, Officer Reese. Sergeant Highway, drunk and disorderly. Fighting in a public establishment. Urinating on a police vehicle?
- Highway: Well, it seemed like the thing to do, sir.
- Judge Zane: Just because there's no war going on does not give you the right to start one every time you get drunk. Now I'm taking into account your excellent military record and your commitment to the security of this great nation. But this is your last chance. One hundred dollar fine. Next!
- Highway: [as he's leaving the courtroom] Your nightstick file for divorce, Reese?
- Reese: [outside the courtroom] Who the hell do you think you are? Pissin' on my squad car. You think you can break our rules and then just walk away? Or are we supposed to wet our pants over your dress blues and your Goddamn colored ribbons. Take a look at that file of yours sometime, hero. Check the dates. It's ancient fucking history. You know, one of these Saturday nights you're going to be puking blood in some alley and you're going to look up and see me standing there. Then we'll see.
- Highway: Keep dreaming, shit ball.
- Reese: You're gonna pay full price rummy. I don't believe in no serviceman's discounts.
- Highway: Too bad, your old lady does.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Your DD 1348 forms are not filled out correctly.
- Choozoo: Yes, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: We're going to approach this exercise in an orderly proficiant manner, Sergeant Major. I want each round of ammunition counted and returned in the exact condition in which it was received.
- Choozoo: I'll personally dot the I's and cross the T's, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Sloppiness breeds inefficiency.
- [Ring and Highway approach]
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Your outfit looks like it could use some cleaning up, Gunny.
- Highway: Sir, I'd like to issued my squad leader a set of night vision goggles.
- Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Darn, I should have thought of that.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: That is not part of your TO&E.
- Highway: But, sir, I...
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Fill out the proper request forms and send it through the chain of command!
- Highway: Request forms!
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: [Colonel gets out of car] Atten-shun! Major Malcom Powers, sir. Annapolis class of '71.
- Colonel Meyers: How are your men doing, Major?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: My men are ready to fight to the death to defend our country, sir.
- Colonel Meyers: Well, let's hope that won't be necessary.
- [Looks at Highway]
- Colonel Meyers: Have we ever served together?
- Highway: I don't know, sir. Sergeant Major Choozoo and I were in the 2nd Battalion and 7th in '68.
- Colonel Meyers: I had a rifle company in the 1st Battalion and 7th in '68.
- Highway: Well, we sure as hell chewed some of the same dirt, sir.
- Colonel Meyers: That's for sure. What's your assessment of this exercise?
- Highway: It's a cluster fuck.
- Colonel Meyers: Say again?
- Highway: Marines are fighting men, sir. They shouldn't be sitting around on their sorry asses filling out request forms for equipment they should already have.
- Colonel Meyers: Interesting observation. Carry on, Major.
- PA Announcer: Now hear this. Now hear this.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: This is it. We're going to war.
- Swede Johanson: Gunny, I'm afraid of heights.
- Highway: So am I.
- Swede Johanson: You are?
- Highway: Jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft is not a natural act. So let's do it right, enjoy the view. Come on.
- Highway: Just because we're holding hands doesn't mean we'll be taking warm showers together until the wee hours of the morning.
- Highway: My name's Gunnery Sergeant Highway and I've drunk more beer and banged more quiff and pissed more blood and stomped more ass that all of you numbnuts put together. Now Major Powers has put me in charge of this reconisence platoon.
- Lance Corporal Fragatti: We take care of ourselves.
- Highway: You couldn't take care of a wet dream. God loves you.
- Collins: I know that!
- Highway: You men do not impress me!
- Profile: Recon platoon kicks butt.
- Highway: [grabs Profile by the nose] If you ladies think that you can slip and slide just because your last sergeant was a pussy, well queer bait, you're going to start acting like marines right now!
- Lance Corporal Fragatti: Who invited ya!
- Highway: I'm not doing this because I want to take long showers with you assholes and I don't want to get my head shot off in some far away land because you don't habla, comprende?
- Aponte: Ruh!
- Highway: You?
- Quinones: Yes, Gunny.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: [singing] And you really look so fine and you've got that big behind.
- Highway: [sees Jones] Well, well, well, well, I'm here to tell you that life as you knew it has ended. You all may as well go into town tonight. You may as well laugh and make fools out of yourselves. Rub your pathetic little peckers against your honies or stick it in a knothole in the fence but whatever it is, get rid of it. Because at 0600 tomorrow your ass is mine.
- [to Jones]
- Highway: Where's your bunk.
- Highway: [walking toward the barracks holding Jones by the ear] Where is it?
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Where's what, man?
- Highway: The money for my ticket.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Hey, no need to resort to unnecessary violence. I was a little down on the money, you know, but I got a little money for you right here. But that's all I got.
- [hands Highway some cash]
- Highway: And the meal.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: The meal.
- Highway: Yeah, the meal.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Ok, I got a little more for you here but that's definitely all I got.
- Highway: And the tip.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: No, man, that's really it that's all I got.
- Highway: You owe me.
- [rips Jones' earring off]
- Highway: Now it's my will against yours and you will lose. So don't forget, 0600. That's six o'clock in the morning for those of you who don't habla.
- Highway: I been pumping pussy since Christ was a corporal. I can tell you, the best damned poontang I ever paid for was in Da Nang. The girls were checked out daily. And we got ourself laid in a safe, orderly, proficient, military manner. That is until some suckhead writes home mama and says he dipped his wick in the Republic of South Vietnam. Then the shit hits the fan. A committee of congressmen who asshole to asshole who couldn't make a beer fart in a whirlwind, start telling your basic-ass-in-the-grass, Marine "No more short time". We responded in true Marine Corps fashion. We salute, do an about face, double time back to the boom-boom garbage dump where we get the clap, and the drip, and the crabs and a generally poor attitude towards the female of the species. War is hell, boy. That's a fact!
- Sergeant Webster: Major Powers and I are building an e-lite company of fighting men.
- Highway: The only thing you could build, Webster... is a good case of hemorrhoids.
- Highway: This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy; and it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: I want this battalion to be the class of the division. I expect my non-commissioned officers to lead by example. Public fighting and insubordination to civilian authority are not what I call good standards!
- Highway: It was a minor altercation, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: That seems to be a habit with you, Gunny! A year ago you hit an officer. I went to Annapolis with that man. You try that with me, Gunnery Sergeant Highway and you'll drag your butt in a sling for a month, you hear me, marine?
- Highway: Yes, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: I don't know what strings you pulled to get back into this division but I can assure you that I don't like it. This is the new Marine Corps. The new breed. Characters like you are an anachronism. You should be sealed in a case that reads break glass only in the event of war. Got no tolerance for you old timers who think that you know it better and can have it all your own way. Understand?
- Highway: I understand a lot of body bags get filled if I don't go my job, sir.
- Choozoo: Major, division has assigned Gunny Highway to our reconisance platoon.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, recon. Their last sergeant was an old time combat vet, too. But he went road on me. Retired on active duty. Had a few months to retirement. Figured he'd coast. Allowed the men to lapse into mediocrity. You're close to mandatory retirement yourself, aren't you, Highway?
- Highway: That's right, Major.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Well, I ask for Marines, the division sends me relics. The men in recon platoon are less than highly motivated to say the least. I want those men in shape.
- Highway: I'll make life takers and heart breakers out of them, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Dismissed.
- Highway: [after leaving the major's office] Is he always like that or is he just trying to make a good impression?
- Choozoo: Word is that he consults the Marine Corps Manual before he mounts his old lady just to make sure that he performs in an...
- Highway, Choozoo: orderly proficiant military manner.
- Choozoo: Yeah, eat chow with Helen and me tonight, she can't wait to see you. Then later we'll go out and stomp some brain cells and tell some stories.
- Highway: Well, I'd like to, Chooz, but I think I better get organized.
- Choozoo: Sure, I understand.
- Choozoo: Hey crotch rot! You gonna slurp my lifer's juice out of my own cup?
- Highway: Yeah, I guess I should have gotten shots before hand.
- Choozoo: If your brain was half as smart as your mouth, skunk stool, you'd be a frickin' twenty star general by now.
- Choozoo: And if I were half as ugly as you are, Sergeant Major, I'd be a poster boy for a prophylactic.
- Choozoo: Still a mean and nasty bastard! Goddamn! Good to see you, Tom. Back where you belong!
- Highway: Easy now, or everyone's gonna think I'm spoken for.
- Choozoo: [seeing the major in the doorway] Ten-hut! Morning, sir!
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Sergeant Major.
- Choozoo: Coffee, sir?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Negative.
- Highway: Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway, reporting for duty, sir.
- [Major Powers turns and walks away]
- Choozoo: That operations officer's fart hole's sewed so tight he shits out of his mouth.
- Highway: Academy?
- Choozoo: Big time football hero.
- Highway: When am I ever going to get a break?
- Choozoo: Never.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Sergeant Major!
- Choozoo: Sir!
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Bring in Gunnery Sergeant Highway.
- [looking at Highway's file]
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Been in a long time.
- Highway: I've felt some heat, sir.
- Choozoo: Korea. Dominican. Three tours in 'Nam. Hell, this old ass in the grass bulldog's carrying around so much shrapnel he can't pass through an airport metal detector.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: I haven't as yet had the privelige of combat. I've recently come over from supply and logistics.
- Choozoo: An unappreciated field of endeavor, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Quite. My record of achievement thus far has been exemplary. I fully intend for that to continue.
- Highway: Sir?
- Highway: [after the students from the Grenada medical school have been rescued] All secured, sir. No casualties, no sign of enemy.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Very good. I want to get some pictures before we wrap this mission.
- Highway: We encountered some heavy resistance along the way, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Probably some local fanatics.
- Highway: Negative. Cuban regulars with Russian rifles.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: That data's already been factored in.
- Choozoo: [on the phone] Sir, Battalion!
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Go ahead.
- Choozoo: Big daddy says to get off your fat ass and get back in the war. His words. He says he wants to recon that hill. One of our fly boys thinks he saw some armor.
- Highway: You're full of all kinds of good news.
- Choozoo: You're too ugly to live forever!
- Sergeant Webster: Highway, I heard you was back.
- Highway: Webster.
- Sergeant Webster: These retards couldn't fight their way out of a shit house.
- Highway: That where you been keeping yourself lately?
- Highway: Major Powers and me are building an elite company of fightin' men.
- Highway: Webster, the only thing you could build is a good case of hemmorhoids.
- [taps Fragatti on the head]
- Lance Corporal Fragatti: What? What?
- Highway: Well, you're blowing away all of your ammunition, Fag-eddy. Miss I ain't America's gonna make Swiss cheese out of you.
- Lance Corporal Fragatti: It's not my fuckin' fault, man. The fuckin' weapon's fuckin' fucked up.
- Highway: [takes rifle and fires at target] There's nothing wrong with that rifle. Keep it tight.
- [moves down to Jones]
- Highway: You wake up this morning with a piss pot on your head?
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Uh, no, Gunny, I wore this in your honor.
- Highway: Is that right?
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Yeah, you know, Sands of Iwo Jima, Pork Chop Hill, Kason, all that old antique shit. Sort of a tribute to an aging veteran close to retirement such as yourself.
- Highway: Well, I'm touched.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Yeah, you know, sort of a recon way of saying welcome and ineveitably, goodbye.
- Highway: And the kevlar helmet you were issued, that didn't by chance find it's way into one of the local pawn shops in town now did it?
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Hey, hey, yo, that's a serious implication, Gunny. You know, we're financially responsible for these bad boys.
- Highway: That's right, you are, that's why I want to see kevlar on your head by 1900 hours or you not gonna have a head wear it on.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Yes, sir, Gunny Highway Sergeant, sir!
- Profile: Hey, Gunny. My weapon's jammed!
- [stands and the rifle goes off]
- Sergeant Webster: [as the platoon is marching back] Major Powers' gonna teach you how to discipline your men.
- Highway: Webster, if Powers ever comes to a sudden stop your face is gonna go half way up his ass.
- Lance Corporal Fragatti: Profile's never gonna make it back to the barracks.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Powers is cold blooded, man.
- Highway: [after Profile falls] Come on, Profile. You can make it. Don't give the prick the satisfaction.
- Highway: Why don't I bend you over the table there... send you home with the "I just pumped the neighbor's cat" look on your face.
- Highway: Get in there. Tell them who you are, so no friendlies get hurt.
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Hello happening hostages! I'm Stitch Jones, Mr. Funkadelic!
- Highway: Try "U.S. Marine", shithead...
- Marine: Just about cleaned you out. Sure makes you feel good, don't it, Gunny? Helping Uncle Sam battle dirty drawers.
- Highway: You pump the neighbor's dog again, Jakes, or are you always slack eyed and silly in the afternoon.
- Marine: Looks like you could use a little lift, Highway. Why don't you suck on one of these. Smooth as a prom queen's thigh only not quite as risky. Havana cured. Gotta pal over in Guantanamo in supply. We do each other favors. I've got lots of friends. Of course, I could always use another friend.
- Highway: So that we can do each other favors?
- Marine: Sure. See, if your pencil wasn't quite so sharp and your eyesight not quite so clear around here I could make your lot in the military life a lot more comfy. Not to mention down right rewardin'.
- Highway: Sergeant, you get that contraband stogie out of my face before I shove it so far up your ass you'll have to set fire to your nose to light it.
- USMC: Gunny Highway! Major Devin wants to see you ASAP.
- Highway: Shut your face, hippie!
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: Hippie?
- [whispers in ear]
- Corporal 'Stitch' Jones: There haven't been hippies in centuries. Are you freeze-dried or doing hard time?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: [approaching Highway] Just what the hell do you think you're doing?
- Highway: Just enjoying the view, sir.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Well, you disobeyed an order. I told you to stay in contact and not take this hill without me. Damn it! Get on your feet, Highway!
- Highway: With all due respect, sir, you're beginning to bore the hell out of me.
- [sees the helicopter landing and Colonel Meyers getting out]
- Colonel Meyers: Who's in charge here?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: I am, sir. Major Malcolm Powers.
- Colonel Meyers: Did you lead this assault?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Sir, Leutenant Ring and Gunnery Sergeant Highway disobeyed a direct order. I told them to wait for support but they went up this hill anyway.
- Colonel Meyers: [to Highway] Why?
- Highway: We're marines, sir. We're paid to adapt, to improvise.
- Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Sir, I gave the order to take this hill.
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Ring, this is going to ruin your career.
- Colonel Meyers: Are you new to the infantry, Major?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, sir. Just came over from supply.
- Colonel Meyers: Were you good at that?
- Maj. Malcolm A. Powers: Yes, sir!
- Colonel Meyers: Well then, stick to it because you're a walking cluster fuck as an infantry officer. My men are hard chargers, Major! Leutenant Ring and Gunny Highway took a handfull of young fire pissers, exercised some personal initiative and kicked ass!
- [to Lt. Ring]
- Colonel Meyers: Good job, Leutenant!
- Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Thank you, sir!
- Colonel Meyers: Leutenant, see to it that those students are escorted back to Cherry Point.
- Lieutenant M.R. Ring: Yes, sir!
- Colonel Meyers: [to Powers] Well, you're dismissed!
- [Highway and Choozoo approach]
- Colonel Meyers: What the hell are you two sorry assed individuals looking at? Get the hell off of my LZ.
- Highway, Choozoo: Semper fi!
- Colonel Meyers: Oo-rah!
- Highway: Well, Chooz, I guess we're not 0-1-1 anymore.