History Main / NoOneGetsLeftBehind

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Jihad". While escaping a lava flow Spock is thrown from the vehicle and Captain Kirk goes back to save him. Spock tells him to go and Kirk says "Not without you."

-->[[BroughtDownToNormal I may not have powers]], but Ben Grimm never leaves his team behind.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Jihad". While escaping a lava flow Spock is thrown from the vehicle and Captain Kirk goes back to save him. Spock tells him to leave him behind and Kirk says "Not without you."

* ''Film/{{Supervolcano}}'' (2005). The protagonist is trapped in an abandoned Air Force base. The only airman there says they have to walk out, as no-one is coming to save them. He asks what happened to "Leave no man behind", and is informed that's the Army's slogan.

See also HonorBeforeReason, which this is usually a subtrope of.

-> [[ArcWords Ohana.]] Ohana means family. Family means [[HeartwarmingMoments no one gets left behind or forgotten.]]

** In "All Our Yesterdays", [=McCoy=] tells Spock to [[IWillOnlySlowYouDown go on without him]] when his and legs get frostbitten. Spock insists, "We go together or not at all."

-->'''Tuvok''': I am injured. Logic dictates that you take the mask and proceed to engineering.
-->'''Neelix''': I don't care what logic dictates! This isn't the ''Salvoxia''. We're not drawing lots.

* Subverted in the DaleBrown novel ''Warrior Class'', where Patrick [=McLanahan=] decides to go against orders to rescue two of his downed crewmen, and while he succeeds, gets into serious trouble with the high command for it.

* In an episode of the ''Series/{{Mash}}'' series, following this trope, at least in regards to dead soldiers, is portrayed as bloody-minded stubbornness that increases overall causalities under the Incompetent General of the Week.

* Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/{{Unfinished Tales|of Numenor and Middleearth}}'' includes the story of how Theoden's son had died, just before Gandalf and company's meeting with Theoden in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. After he fell fighting orcs, his men fought to keep his body from them; having fought them off, they discovered he was still alive, but he lived only long enough to tell them to bury him there.

* ''StarTrek/Voyager'': In "The Haunting of Deck 12", Neelix says this to Tuvok.

* Most of the plot of ''{{Cloverfield}}'', with Rob and companions trying to save Beth as the monster flattens Manhattan. Later lampooned when Hud, probably the least intelligent of a rather dim group, goes back to [[spoiler:retrieve the camera from the helicopter wreckage, only to get bitten in half by the monster.]]
* Averted in the ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' movies. Part of the pirate's code is "Whoever falls behind is left behind." Many of the characters, both good and bad, follow this.

* Parodied in ''LittleMissSunshine'': Frank says this line after Olive is left at a gas station.
* In ''ForrestGump'', Gump earns the Medal of Honor for rescuing his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. At times, Lieutenant Dan wishes that he had lost his life instead of his lower legs.

* Used and {{Lampshade}}d in the aforementioned ''SavingPrivateRyan''. When Captain Miller and his squad are ordered to venture deep into German-occupied France to recover a lost soldier who may already be dead, he and his squad are naturally not too thrilled about this. The rest of the movie then shows their struggle between deciding whether to find Ryan or just leave him behind.

* Subversion: In ''CanadianBacon'', the [[TheSpartanWay Omega Force]] sent to locate the protagonist is running along the Canadian wilderness when one of them falls down and clutches his foot. Another one approaches, and the guy on the ground says "It's just my toe." [[YouHaveFailedMe Boom]].
* This is basically the plot of ''BlackHawkDown'', based on the Battle of Mogadishu.

* ''{{Supervolcano}}'' (2005). The protagonist is trapped in an abandoned Air Force base. The only airman there says they have to walk out, as no-one is coming to save them. He asks what happened to "Leave no man behind", and is informed that's the Army's slogan.

* As noted in the description, there is a severe downside to this trope in real life. GenreSavvy opponents will often create attacks to ''wound'' not ''kill'' opponents, forcing those forces to dedicate significant resources to care and protect the wounded, severely hampering mission capabilities. This is because a dead comrade, while mourned, allows soldiers to ignore the body and keep fighting, while a wounded comrade requires at least one other soldier to care and defend them, so a ''wound'' actually removes '''two''' soldiers from combat effectiveness, while a ''fatality'' only removes one. Guerrilla forces are particularly known for this tactic, as are sniper teams.
** The upside is a ''very'' significant morale boost for all soldiers, allowing them to maintain a very aggressive posture and run more risks, as they know they'll be taken care of should they be wounded.
* Also note that this trope is a very new one for militaries. For much of history, the nature of combat either made this impossible (hand-to-hand combat meant the fallen remained on the field where they fell, as there was little opportunity to carry off the wounded while combat raged), sufficient social custom allowed for collection of the wounded by each side after battles, or increased legalisms in war meant that the treatment of prisoners was formalized and prioritized, so that being captured was less risky and more of an inconvenience. With the ideologically-driven WW2, and later, the switchover to mostly asymmetrical warfare in the mid-20th century, this trope moved to the fore, as advanced militaries could reliably transport out their wounded ''during'' combat, while the treatment of captured soldiers by irregular (or ideologically-driven) forces was perceived (mostly justifiably) as being a death sentence.

* ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''. Harry brings Cedric's body back to his father after he's killed by Wormtail.

* In an episode of the ''[[{{MASH}} M* A* S* H]]'' series, following this trope, at least in regards to dead soldiers, is portrayed as bloody-minded stubbornness that increases overall causalities under the Incompetent General of the Week.

* The Israeli military takes this to an extreme by trading important prisoners for its soldiers be they dead or alive.

* Averted early on in ''Film/{{Stalingrad}}''. During an assault on a factory, one of the [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons Heer]] soldiers breaks down in fear and huddles in a foxhole. His companion briefly attempts to pull him out, but Sergeant Rohleder commands him to grab the man's dog tags and leave him. The straggler is promptly killed by artillery.

Can lead to AntagonistInMourning when the characters had been hostile to each other before. Extra [[KickTheDog kicks]] if they had just become FireForgedFriends.

* Subverted in JackCampbell's ''TheLostFleet'' where Captain Geary tries to make good on this only to realize that several of his ships are clearly not going to make the escape from the enemy until another ship (commanded by his grandnephew) performs a HeroicSacrifice.

* In Creator/AndreNorton's ScienceFiction novels, this trope is occasionally invoked as an ironclad rule of space travel: No One Gets Left Behind on a strange planet, no matter if he's your worst enemy. In ''Literature/AndroidAtArms'', this leads to the protagonist and some of his companions searching for an untrustworthy fellow traveller until they find his body.

* ''TheGunsOfNavarone''. Both played straight and {{Subverted}} with Major Franklin: first Captain Mallory refuses to leave him behind, then does leave him behind with the Germans after feeding him false information about the nature of their mission in the hope the Germans will use TruthSerums to get it out of him.

*** That's it? That's all you say about Mkoll's [[CrowningMomentofAwesome insane]] dive into a pocket warp dimension, full of thousand of gigantic, man-tank stalkers and multiple ARMIES of cultists and armor support, armed only with a plasma pistol and a knife? Hell, Mkoll even admits later that he lost count of how many he killed!

* Sarge and his men have this attitude in the ''Film/ToyStory'' movies.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'': "A good soldier never leaves a man behind!" And whatever the movie he might be in, what is R. Lee Ermey if not a good soldier?

** At the Battle of Dale (which took place around the same time of the Battle of Minas Tirith), King Dain II Ironfoot dies defending the body of King Brand of Dale outside the gates of the Lonely Mountain, after the people of Dale have fled there.