A Lamb to the Slaughter (WWE Superstar – Sergeant Slaughter)

Remus’ claims may be considered controversial today, but when I was a kid, wrestling fans my age were dogmatic about wrestling kayfabe. If Sergeant Slaughter said he was a former Marine drill instructor, then, gosh darnit, that’s what he was, and there was no way to convince us otherwise, even if Robert Rudolph Remus himself said so. If somebody said their cousin was in boot camp, and Sergeant Slaughter was his drill instructor, and the cousin had the graduation book with Slaughter’s photo in it to prove it, that was plenty proof for me.

Years later, when I was in Fort Eustis, Virginia, completing the Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for my chosen Military Occupational Specialty (MOS), I finally got the chance to ask some real Marines if Sergeant Slaughter had actually been a drill instructor. The three Marines swore up and down he had been. They’d all seen his photo in a bootcamp graduation book– a graduation book no one could offer up as evidence, mind you. This elusive Marine graduation book became the Holy Grail of Marine graduation books.

I promised myself I would track down the book as soon as I returned home from AIT, the last phase of military training I had to get past to escape the tyranny of the drill sergeants who controlled my existence for the last three months. All my time and effort were channeled toward that end. I hated day-to-day military life and I hated dressing in military uniforms.

When I got home, I gave up on the idea of searching for the mythical graduation book everybody and nobody had seen, and instead, redirected my energy toward getting rid of my own graduation book.
The front of the thin hardcover book was labeled FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, 4th Training Brigade. At the center of the cover was a drawing of combat tanks and cavalry horses in a windswept desert framed by a very ugly blue and yellow color scheme. As ugly as the cover was, it wasn’t what I hated most about the book. It was the comments my fellow graduates scribbled onto the inside covers of the book that I hated the most.

They called me “8-up”. In military shorthand, being 8 (like the number 8)- up, means you’re a subpar soldier, which was absolutely true during my basic training at Fort Knox.

Actually, subpar is putting it mildly. I was a complete disaster. Hmmm. How bad was I?

I made Gomer Pyle look like Rambo. Nobody in my graduating class thought to write that, they weren’t clever enough, but their comments were along those lines.

I don’t think my fellow graduates intended to be cruel. They were probably just aiming for that good-natured ribbing, military humor is known for.
Hey, I can take a joke. And I can give it back, too. But when everyone’s writing the same things–8-up this, and 8-up that–all those 8’s start lining up and you say to yourself: wait, this isn’t a graduation book; it’s a longform math equation; the sum of which is only a partial assessment of who I was during basic training.

It wasn’t all me fumbling and bumbling my way through basic training. I provided a lot of laughs through impersonations.

I did impersonations of wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, and, of course, Sergeant Slaughter. And through pure happenstance, I learned to imitate other drill sergeants, too–namely the ones training us.

Doing these imitations was a double-edged sword. Sometimes I got command invitations to the drill sergeant mess hall to perform for them like some resident court jester, but mostly it just made me fodder for punishment from the drill sergeants who didn’t appreciate my sense of humor one bit, especially if they were the butt of the joke.

In the movie STRIPES, Sergeant Hulka didn’t appreciate Bill Murray’s sense of humor one bit either. In fact, he thought Bill Murray’s character, JOHN WINGER, was a total piece of garbage. He hates Winger so much he invites him to take a swing at him. It’s one of the best scenes in the movie and it plays out like this:

Sergeant Hulka: I’m talking about something important, like discipline and duty and honor and courage. And you ain’t got none of it!
John Winger: Those words mean so much to a man who scrubs garbage cans. Look, if you don’t want me in your Army, kick me out, but get off my back.
Sergeant Hulka: Maybe you’d like to take a swing at me.

John Winger: I ‘d like to take a BIG swing at you, sarge.

Sergeant Hulka: Well, go ahead and give it your best shot.

John Winger: I don’t think I want to go to the stockade.

Sergeant Hulka: I’ll take my hat off. There we are, Winger. Ain’t no more drill sergeant. It’s just you and me, kid, man to man. So go ahead, give it your best shot. Swing at me. Gutless. Punk!

[Winger fakes, then tries to hit Sgt. Hulka, who ducks and punches Winger in his stomach, dropping him to his knees, gasping for breath]

Sergeant Hulka: [putting his hat back on] I’m willing to forget this little incident. And I want you to think real hard about it. And maybe someday you’ll understand what the hell I’m talking about.
Variations of this scene can be found in many military movies, from A SOLDIER’S STORY to AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN to G.I.JANE. and BILOXI BLUES.

What happens is this: the non-conformists among the trainees, earn the drill sergeant’s ire. Then, they’re goaded into fighting the drill sergeant by the drill sergeants themselves. And then, they get their asses handed to them, sometimes disgracefully and sometimes honorably, but always painfully. And that’s their comeuppance for trying to buck the system; for trying to be an individual. Or, maybe, like me, they just had a very punchable face.

That had to be why our senior drill sergeant challenged me to duke it out with him. He must have thought I had a very punchable face. Maybe it was part of some psychological team- building exercise. Who knows why? But it came like a bolt from the blue.

One minute the platoon was sitting in a tight circle listening to him go over his military experience, the next minute he’d locked eyes with me, talking about people who think they’re tougher than they really are; people who are out to prove something. I was neither of those, but he seemed pretty sure I was. He called me out in front of the whole platoon, and for a brief millisecond, I almost took him up on his offer to fight him.

I was held back by my strong instinct for self-preservation. The senior drill sergeant may not have looked like Sergeant Slaughter, but he was very tough-looking in his own right.

He was 6 foot 4, lean, and broad-shouldered. He knew jujitsu and looked a lot like the actor HAL WILLIAMS. Williams was played Sergeant L.C. ROSS in the film PRIVATE BENJAMIN. Check Williams out in that movie and tell me if you’d be willing to go toe-to-toe with him or his twin brother. If you would be willing to do that, you’re a better man than me.

Here’s the crazy thing. I deeply regret not taking the senior drill sergeant up on his fight challenge. I know I wouldn’t have stood a chance against Sergeant Hal (I’m calling him Sergeant Hal from hereon in), but it could have greatly changed the course of my life to accept his challenge.

Yes, it could have landed me in the hospital, the stockade, or discharged from the Army altogether. But it also could have earned me the respect of my fellow trainees, or Sergeant Hal himself, just for making a stand against him. It could have been seen by many as a gutsy decision; reckless and stupid too, but mostly gutsy.

I have never stopped thinking about what was waiting for me on the other side of that ass-kicking.
When I think about it now, cynically and with the cool detachment of a psychoanalyst, I’m embarrassed for wanting to gain the platoon’s approval. I’m embarrassed for wanting to gain Sergeant Hal’s approval. It was his approval that mattered the most to me, anyway. It wasn’t like I was going to see Hal or any of these people ever again. 

And who’s to say standing up to Sergeant Hal would have changed my reputation as a screwup? What if that was exactly what everyone expected an 8 up individual to do? Get into a physical fight with a drill sergeant. And who’s to say my self-esteem would have faired any better after graduation than it had while I was just a green recruit? See, lots of questions.

I didn’t have the heart to trash my graduation book, so I buried it deep in a storage bin in my attic–a place I only go once a year to gather Halloween and Hanukkah ornaments. And because I never get the slightest inkling to dig up that book, it stays buried like some chained-up sea monster at the bottom of a dark lake.

The Marine graduation book proving Sergeant Slaughter was indeed a Marine drill instructor on Parris Island was probably buried in the same dark lake, if it even existed in the first place. I am willing to bet the farm it didn’t. Like I said before, we were dogmatic about our kayfabe. But everyone has to grow up sometime.

I wonder how many young kids thought Sergeant Slaughter was just a cartoon character on the G.I.JOE. animated series of the 1980s, and not an actual person. Did they know the character was based on a real professional wrestler? According to the Wikipedia overview of the Sergeant Slaughter G.I. JOE character:

“He’s a drill instructor with a mission to train recruits into military perfection. He’s known for exaggerating his career, and is credited with superhuman feats like drilling trainees for 72 hours straight. He’s also qualified to drive many of the Joes’ vehicles, but pushes them past their limits, believing that nothing will give you a break on the battlefield.” 

While Sergeant Slaughter, the cartoon character, was pushing G.I. JOE vehicles beyond their limits, Vince McMahon was busy pushing the Sergeant Slaughter wrestling character beyond its limits. 
Slaughter went from heel to face in early 1984, feuding with the Iron Shiek regularly as a super-patriot defending the honor of the United States against Iran’s evil emissary. 

Then, after a 5-year hiatus, Slaughter returned to the WWF as a heel once again. This time, as an Iraqi sympathizer who favored Iraq’s brutality over America’s wartime softness. His new alignment with Iraq pissed off so many fans, he started receiving death threats and had to wear a bulletproof vest wherever he went. 

To turn the hate factor up a notch or three, McMahon asked Slaughter to burn the American flag. Slaughter refused. 

Good for him! He was already pushing the envelope wearing Arab headdresses to the ring and spewing anti-American rhetoric. How much more dangerous did McMahon want this man’s job to become? In 1991, a mere few days after the start of the first Gulf War, Sergeant Slaughter became the thirteenth holder of the WWF championship. It was a championship he would later lose to Hulk Hogan.After the feuding with Hogan, Slaughter turned face again. 

In a series of bittersweet vignettes, Sergeant Slaughter was shown lamenting the split between him and the United States, as if the falling out was America’s fault, and not his. He wanted his country back the way people pined for their old ex’s. It was a bit weird, but not totally unsympathetic. 
Did all these character arcs help make Sergeant Slaughter more human than he had been at the start of his wrestling career? Or were these arcs too erratic and treacherous? 

In real life, Slaughter’s traitorous activities would not have been forgiven so easily. The good news today is Sergeant Slaughter doesn’t have to put with the see-saw storylines McMahon forced upon him. 
Today, he is 76 years old and retired. His loyalty to the WWE and his legendary career have made him an ambassador for the WWE, inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2004. SLAUGHTER remains the only G.I.JOE. character based on a living human being. He’s apologized for any misleading comments he made about his military service and has cited his inspiration for the creation of Sergeant Slaughter.

It was a 1957 movie called THE D.I., starring JACK WEBB (from the TV show DRAGNET) as the title character. Webb plays a strict drill instructor who’s charged with making a Marine out of a capable recruit who doesn’t believe in himself enough to get through basic training. The movie got positive reviews and Webb’s performance was considered one of his best. I haven’t seen it myself, but I have to believe Jack Webb did a helluva job if he inspired Robert Rudolph Remus to think a drill instructor would make an amazing villainous character.
And that’s as much a glimpse as we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of the assembly of a drill instructor. All we need to know is that, real or not, men like Sergeant Slaughter exist. If you want to know anything more, you’ll have to visit the factory for yourself. 

“TEN-HUT!” 

“Sergeant Slaughter will live forever. AND THAT’S the FACT, JACK! BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA-BOOM!”
You’ve been listening to WRESTLING WITH HEELS ON. JOIN ME IN TWO WEEKS–MAYBE–AND WE’LL TAKE ANOTHER STROLL DOWN VILLAINY LANE, ONLY ON THE SPORTS HISTORY NETWORK.