History Main / NewMeat

*** ''Duty Calls'' notes that Valhallans have a term for new meat: "FNG", or "fung" - short for "frakking new guy". One Valhallan unit known for its LeeroyJenkins tendencies even has higher morale than would be associated with their usual losses, since these losses are mostly fungs.
*** The term "FNG" is used in real militaries, in either a weird kind of TruthInTelevision or as a shout-out by the author; of course, here in the [[RealLife real world]] it stands for "[[PrecisionFStrike fucking new guy]]".

* In the nonfiction book ''Literature/Dispatches'' about covering the Vietnam War, reporter Michael Herr is greeted this way by a platoon commander. "Go and find another unit to get killed with, Fresh Meat."

* ''Manga/CellsAtWorkWhiteBrigade'': Band Cell is an immature Neutrophil fresh out of training, and is understandably anxious and uncomfortable on his first day on the job. While he does get in over his head at at times, and his coworkers give him a bit of a hard time, he manages to avoid becoming TheLoad.

** Nearly the entire crew counts as new meat, since they were just Cadets on a training cruise when they were attacked; Sara just appears to be the newest of the new meat as her true background and qualifications were kept secret from the others.

* Freshly graduated genin in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' don't get important missions. For a few months they do little more than basic training and chores without leaving the village. An indignant Naruto is berated for thinking that he should be an exception to this.

* When James Bond joins Moriarty's crew in ''Manga/MoriartyThePatriot'', he is entirely confused as to how they work and tries to follow orders that aren't given and follow a hierarchy that doesn't exist. He picks it up pretty quick once someone bothers to explain, but until he does, Colonel Moran refuses to accept him as a man (and since Bond is trans, that stings).
* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'' has Togami. As a series mostly about PrivateMilitaryContractors called hunters, there is a certain company called Drakam that is politically divided between the younger members who get preferential treatment, making them into SpoiledBrat mercenaries, and the hardened veterans. Togami is one of the younger soldiers who hates the leader of the young faction, and is promoted as the public figurehead of the opposing faction by putting him into missions he's not ready for, alongside the protagonist Akira. At first he's a BoisterousWeakling, due to having been better only compared to those preferentially treated younger members, and undergoes a BreakTheHaughty experience [[DrivesLikeCrazy clinging for dear life]] to Akira's car for most of the battle. After that, he becomes more humble trying to learn, despite still being picked on by [[OldSoldier the veteran]] Shirakabe.

* Subverted in the ComicBook/GIJoe comic books when a new character, codename Scoop, was introduced. He's well qualified for most millitary positions but he's new meat for the types of insanity the Joes get up to. In his first mission, everything goes to hell, the mission is a bust and it's a race back to the copter just to ''live''. Scoop gains the respect of the veterans by [[NoOneGetsLeftBehind helping a dazed and confused fellow soldier get to safety]].

* ''ComicBook/StarWarsKanan'': Due to the fate of Billaba's previous unit most of her battalion after taking on Caleb Dume as her padawan are new to the field, however CT-1157 gets the most characterization and frequently lampshades the fact that the older officers are treating him as an untested newbie. He is among those Grey thinks shouldn't be out in the field yet, and he didn't even have a name (he later earns the name "Stance") when he joined the unit.

* ''Fanfic/TheWrongReflection'': Eleya shuts up Dal Kanril by doing her best DrillSergeantNasty-style DeathGlare, the description of which references boot camp students as "brainless boot"-s "the look that says, I don’t give a flying ''phekk'' if you’re Shakaar Edon himself; as far as I’m concerned you’re just another brainless boot who can’t tell which end of a combat knife goes into the other guy." Dal Kanril automatically snaps to attention despite herself, and later mentions she felt like she was back in basic training.

* Private Jones from the latter half of ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''. He's young, gawky and a bit of a coward, but hell, he's one of the last ten sane men in England. They ''have'' to keep him around. He basically exists to spur on the plot point of [[spoiler: [[MarsNeedsWomen "Manchester needs women!"]] and to briefly wear a frilly pink apron before dying horribly]].

* ''Film/BattleOfMoscow'': The cadets of the Podolsk military academy, boys in their late teens, taken directly from school and sent straight to the front lines, as the Soviets desperately struggle to contain a Nazi breakout on the road to Moscow. The teenagers acquit themselves well but are eventually annihilated when they recklessly attack into what turns out to be a much larger German force.

* Private Norman Ellison of the film ''Film/Fury2014''. He's a clerk typist with no battle experience, but he has to replace a beloved member of TheTeam who have been together for years. He is incompetent at first, but gets better [[spoiler:and winds up being the only survivor of the tank crew at the end of the film.]]

* ''Film/StarshipTroopers'': A common phrase used to refer to new recruits is "fresh meat for the grinder". Quite funny, in a horrible sort of way. At the end Rico's decimated unit receives reinforcements, all of which are teens fresh out of bootcamp (eerily reminiscent of World War II footage of the Nazis throwing in ChildSoldiers by the end of the war). Rico quips that he and his second-in-command Ace ([[DawsonCasting 20-year old soldiers]]) are the "old men" now before proceeding to give the arrivals the exact same speech that the unit commander whom Rico replaced gave when he, Ace, and Dizzy joined the unit.

* In the World War 2 film ''Film/TheBigRedOne'' a group of green US soldiers survive their first battle in North Africa thanks to their Sargent, a grizzled World War I veteran. Afterwards the soldiers are kept in the same squad and survive all the battles they fight in until the end of the war. However, the squad has a horrible record with any new members who join it. The rookies get killed so quickly that the veterans stop trying to learn their names. In the end the soldiers realize that they have more in common with the veteran German soldier they captured then with their own army's New Meat.
* ''Film/SevenWaysFromSundown'': Seven Jones is a still wet behind the ears rookie who arrives in Buckley to take up his first posting as a Texas Ranger. He is inexperienced and smaller than all of the other Rangers, and has never handled a six shooter. Then he and the unit's Sergeant Rock are sent out to bring the territory's most infamous outlaw, by themselves...

* The fresh faced Jamie Groves in ''Film/HangmansKnot'' who has never killed a man.

** In Creator/DanAbnett's Literature/GauntsGhosts novel ''Straight Silver'', many of the Ghosts are struck with how young their allies are. Kolea talks for a bit about "the kids" and how young they are; Criid, thinking for a moment that he meant her children, realizes that he meant the New Meat and that his memory was not healing.
** In ''His Last Command'', Ludd must get the Dev Hetra, a unit of New Meat, into battle. Through a combination of encouragement, threats, and TalkToTheFist, he succeeds; the commander asks him to stay with them, to lead him the benefit of his experience, which lets him stay so cool under fire, because he must remember his first battle. Ludd, who is, in fact, in his first battle, says that, yes, you do remember it.

** In Creator/SandyMitchell's Literature/CiaphasCain novel ''For The Emperor'', the PDF unit that tries to stop them from escorting the tau to their compound consists of young soldiers. They have to be massacred to the last man to prevent the word getting out, and Cain, and his soldiers, find it DirtyBusiness.

*** The term "FNG" is used in real militaries, in either a weird kind of TruthInTelevision or as a shout out by the author; of course, here in the [[RealLife real world]] it stands for "[[PrecisionFStrike fucking new guy]]".

* In nonfiction book ''Literature/Dispatches'' about covering the Vietnam War, reporter Michael Herr is greeted this way by a platoon commander. "Go and find another unit to get killed with, Fresh Meat."

* In ''Literature/HomageToCatalonia'', many of the people in Orwell's company, included himself, have no prior war experience though that is likely because many of them are still teenagers. They don't even get any decent training before going to frontlines.

* In ''Literature/TheWinterWar'' by Antti Tuuri, a new boy arriving to the front says he'd like to try firing a rifle because he's never fired an army rifle before. All we learn about him after that is that he did not last long.

* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': Skye spends most of the first season as a civilian consultant, but Coulson makes no attempt to hide the fact that he's planning on inducting her into S.H.I.E.L.D. officially, even assigning veteran agent Grant Ward as her SO. Her naivete causes numerous personality conflicts, not to mention the time that Fitzsimmons decide that since they've never had an underling before, they should start pranking her. She officially becomes an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in episode 16... one episode before [[spoiler:S.H.I.E.L.D. is officially (but temporarily) disbanded]], meaning that for the rest of the season she's literally the newest and lowest ranking agent in the entire organization.

** A later episode had Webster, a member of the company since boot camp in the US, return to the unit after spending a fair bit of time in the hospital recovering from a wound. He missed the harrowing experience of the Battle of the Bulge and his shell shocked comrades cannot relate to him anymore. They start treating him like New Meat which makes him quite angry since he was a veteran of D-Day and Operation Market Garden.

** The series starts with Hornblower coming aboard ''Justinian''. Luckily for him, it's not a war yet, and he has some time to adapt. However, he's a midshipman who is older that he should be (he's 17, and 12 was considered the ideal age to become a middie). He vomits while the ship is harboured, to the amusement of his colleagues, and he's afraid of heights (great when he has to climb to adjust the sails). Plus, he has to deal with a sadistic bully. When the war starts, he and some of his fellow middies get transferred to a frigate, where he shows his SinkOrSwimMentor that not only he has it together, but that he's TheHero with promising future. His division who originally had little respect for him start to worship him and he inspires nothing but absolute loyalty in them.
** Mr Wellard is a New Meat of a Midshipman in the second instalment. He demonstrates his being green by vomiting when he sees a sailor get splattered on deck, and by being incapable to make lower-deck seamen shut up and break their fight. (However, the sailor's disrespect get Lts Hornblower and Kennedy absolutely furious on his behalf, and they defend him.) Their mad Captain chooses Wellard for a whipping boy because he can't flog his lieutenants. The ship's doctor treats his severe wounds by laudanum, and he spends much of "Mutiny" being high. In "Retribution", he gets a chance to prove himself competent and brave. [[spoiler: However, he dies during a battle when their ship is taken over by their Spanish prisoners.]]

* Timothy [=McGee=] in ''Series/{{NCIS}}''. For the first couple of seasons, he is extremely inexperienced and prefers to hide behind his computer than to do field work. His teammates, particularly Tony, enjoy taunting him, often calling him "Probie" or other variations thereof. Within the course of a few seasons, however, he has matured greatly - after being promoted to Senior Field Agent [[spoiler: when Gibbs unexpectedly retires to Mexico]], he relishes in his new responsibility and earns the respect of his coworkers.

* Ensign Harry Kim of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' is presented as the naïve fresh-out-of-Starfleet Academy rookie to contrast with more experienced characters. His introductory scene shows him being conned by Quark on Series/DeepSpaceNine until he's rescued by the more worldly-wise Tom Paris, and [[BreakTheCutie bad things tend to happen to him]] [[ButtMonkey more than anyone else]]. Unfortunately lazy scriptwriting meant he was stuck in this character-type for seven years, despite the occasional acknowledgement that he had actually gained a good deal of experience and should have been a veteran.

* Elena of the Turks in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', also a NaiveNewcomer of the third person kind. She's dedicated to the job, but tries too hard, and is often mocked by the lazier members of the QuirkyMiniBossSquad.

** In all the ''X-COM'' games, every soldier starts off as New Meat, and usually not very good New Meat. The few soldiers that manage to survive the first few missions (in which they are completely unarmoured and wielding peashooters) generally ascend to godhood in terms of ability by the end of the game. Except that, due to variable overflow, any stat growing over 255 will be lowered to (X-255). That means your god-like unit having 2 movement points, or fainting from low stamina.

** ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'' actually has a special term for this trope (in the air force context): "nuggets". Your entire squadron (except the late-game addition of TheSixthRanger) is composed of nuggets of various degree of inexperience. Nagase has most flying experience behind her, Blaze (the player character) and Chopper are roughly equal at first, and Grimm is introduced during an air raid on the player's air base with one of your wingmen incredulously reminding him he hasn't finished combat training yet, but he takes off anyway. Inverted in that while his later appearance in cutscenes shows us he is obviously at least five years younger and built smaller than the rest of TheSquad, he's [[AcePilot good enough]] to contribute to the base defense, and is soon considered an ace by his peers once inexperience is no longer an issue. Later some rookie pilots show up who help very slightly for a few minutes before dying because they apparently couldn't point their nose at the sky for two or three seconds.

* Pretty much the new recruits in the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' series. They join the party with no items equipped, no abilities mastered, and may be underleveled depending on the party's average level. By ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'', new recruits come with basic armor and a basic weapon that teaches them their first ability for their job.

* The "Recruit" background for Mike in ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' will have him with barely three months of experience, as opposed to being a talented soldier, experienced black ops guy, or a skilled tech user. Gameplay wise, you start out with no points to invest in your skills, making Mike seem like something of an ActionSurvivor.

** While there are many badass Pandaren warriors of various classes and specialties, most of the new recruits are this. In Shado-Pan Monastery, an event before the second boss involves you (non-lethally) taking down 20 Shado-Pan Initiates, who fixate on random party members, but are generally not a threat even for healers or cloth wearers given how quickly they are defeated. In one Golden Lotus daily quest, you have to fight against 20 trainees, each of whom have about a tenth of the health of the common enemies throughout the zones. The quest giver for the latter laments that the trainees are too weak to be relied on in any sense.

* For all intents and purposes, Emil from ''WebComic/StandStillStaySilent'' is this. He's been in the army for less than two years at the start of the story and his crewmates are either more than a decade older or ChildSoldiers all grown up. His pre-story job was in a DemolitionsExpert unit, which means he never fought a troll up close before Chapter 3. While the team quickly picks up a LittleStowaway who has even less real world experience than Emil in many aspects, he also tends to stick with the non-combatants, making Emil the one who is gradually discovering the harsh truths on the combat side of things over the course of the story.

* Protesting out loud against the sacrificing of New Meat as a [[WeHaveReserves mere diversion]] is what lead to [[spoiler:Prince Zuko receiving his scar]] in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''.

* In ''FanFic/WinterWar'', Orihime's older brother Sora ends up filling this role in the Hueco Mundo plotline. He's at the level of a gifted Academy student in their final year- when the rest of the group are experienced soldiers, most at high levels of power to boot. Naturally, he's useless in combat against powerful Arrancar. The team doesn't hold it against him, though, since he's not really there to fight. Rather, he's there because the team is hoping to get Orihime working with them- and since she's been held captive for months, they want to have someone there who knows her well enough to tell if she's able to help or about to crack, and serve as her LivingEmotionalCrutch if need be.

* Yorito Nagai starts out as this in ''VideoGame/{{Siren}} 2''. [[TookALevelInBadass He gets better]].

--> '''Grenadier:''' Hey new guy, hope you got your shit together.
--> '''Grenadier:''' Hey new guy, try not to fuck it up!
* This tends to happen with anyone who just started playing an FPS in online mode. Adjusting AI-tested strategies, twitch reflexes, weapon choices, the mechanics of the game, any differences in play between single-player and online, and even compensating for lag tend to throw everyone just starting out online off their rhythm for a week or two.

* The "nuggets", especially Hot Dog, Kat, and a gaggle of others from the new ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}''. Hot Dog and Kat don't remain New Meat long, though; ''Battlestar Galactica'' wasn't a show where StatusQuoIsGod. While [[spoiler: the rest of the newbie pilots are killed soon after, Kat becomes an experienced pilot that rivals Starbuck in terms of skill and attitude by the time of her death.]] Likewise, of the initial recruits, Hot Dog is [[spoiler: the only one to survives the ending of the series. By that time, he is one of Galactica's most experienced and respected pilots. He even leads the Viper wing during the assault on the Colony.]]

* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell''. Togusa is constantly referred to as "the rookie" by fellow Section 9 member Batou, though by ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex Solid State Society]]'' he's shaken off the label and become the field commander of Section 9. However, it's his tendency to do things by the book and high aversion against excessive violence that [[HeWhoFightsMonsters makes him valuable to the team of former special forces cyborgs]].

* ''LightNovel/RebuildWorld'' has Togami. As a series mostly about PrivateMilitaryContractors called hunters, there is a certain company called Drakam, that is politically divided between the younger members who get preferential treatment, making them into SpoiledBrat mercenaries, and the hardened veterans. Togami is one of the younger soldiers who hates the leader of the young faction, and is promoted as the public figurehead of the opposing faction by putting him into missions he's not ready for, alongside the protagonist Akira. At first he's a BoisterousWeakling, due to having been better only compared to those preferentially treated younger members, and undergoes a BreakTheHaughty experience [[DrivesLikeCrazy clinging for dear life]] to Akira's car for most of the battle. After that, he becomes more humble trying to learn, despite still being picked on by [[OldSoldier the veteran]] Shirakabe.

* Regardless of how much experience they have, any Turians who haven't fought humanity in ''Fanfic/MythosEffect'' are considered new meat. Notably when a lieutenant meets with his commanding officer, he can tell the veterans from the newbies by their appearance. The new officers are all standing at parade rest in immaculate uniforms while the vets all look like they woke up in a body bag and crawled to the meeting.
* The intro blurbs for the characters in ''We Are the Night'' describe Helena as "new to high school and new to the night shift." While having trained her whole life to join the Batfamily's ranks means she is quite capable, she approaches beating the tar out of bad guys with more enthusiasm and playfulness than any other member has any right to.

-->'''Gaz:''' It's the FNG, sir. Go easy on him sir, it's his first engagement.\\

* The US Army is less-polite, it's "FNG" for "[[PrecisionFStrike Fucking]] New Guy". The Marines refer to them as "Boots" because their boots are brand new.

* Donut for the Red team and Caboose for the Blue team in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue''. Donut manages to earn some basic respect from his comrades after capturing the Blue flag. Caboose [[TheMillstone team kills his own leader]].

* Showed up on ''Series/AdamTwelve'' from time to time. Reed himself was this toward the beginning, but later, a few eps had other rookies as one-off characters (though they usually didn't die.)