History Main / SociopathicSoldier

** The BB Corps in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' are Unwilling Conscripts turned Psychopaths, having all started out as helpless victims of war but being deliberately manipulated into becoming ruthless, sadistic cyborg monsters who live to kill.

** Solid Snake is somewhere between a Broken Soldier and a Psychopath. He demonstrably has a strong moral code compared to even the other heroic characters in the game, but at various times (especially in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'') characters call him out for enjoying the killing, which he all but acknowledges. (This ties into the fact that [[YouBastard the player is, of course, killing people as Snake for their personal entertainment]].) In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', if the player chooses to have Snake kill too many people in one go, Snake has a flashback to Liquid accusing him of enjoying all the killing and [[HeelRealization vomits]]. He constantly attempts to quit battle due to his PTSD, but is also constantly drawn back into it again, and says it's the only time he feels truly alive.

* Subverted with Trevor Phillips of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', who despite completing his training as a helicopter pilot for the [[UsefulNotes/CanucksWithChinooks Royal Canadian Air Force]], failed the psychological evaluation which prevented him from actually joining.

# '''The Psychopath:''' The PsychoForHire who joined up ''specifically'' to RapePillageAndBurn and doesn't care whose banner they're doing it under. If he wasn't in the army, he'd be a SerialKiller or other sadistic criminal, or (more likely) an angry average Joe who'd eventually [[GoingPostal lash out violently]] once all that bitter hatred boiled over.

* ''VideoGame/SabresOfInfinity'' Cazarosta, his hatred of the Antari, indifference to the horrors of war and his casual disregard of the rules of engagement amount to this.
* In the Xbox/[=PS2=] game ''VideoGame/{{Shellshock}}'', there are numerous times where your squad massacres civilians even if you don't take part in it. In the second mission, you go to search a village for weapons and a single Vietcong. Or, after you round up everyone in the village, you can start shooting and the others will join in and gun down all the villagers, accomplishing the same objective. Later on, you also kill wounded amputees in a Vietcong hospital. Plus, one of your squadmates ([[MeaningfulName whose name is literally "Psycho"]]) constantly kills [=POWs=] in cutscenes and helps the South Vietnamese commissar torture people.
* How a lot of the opposing grunts are portrayed in ''[[VideoGame/SOCOMUSNavySeals SOCOM US Navy Seals]]'' - but the few that you get the drop on in conversations casually talk about what their former base used to be, complaining about their StrawFeminist of a CO, or recruiting civilians onto their side with idealistic logic.
* Pale-faced shocktrooper Jane Turner from ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'', who specifically joined up with Squad 7 to, as she puts it, "put holes in [[TheEmpire Imps]]." Yeah, she's a little creepy.

* Apparently, the various grunts in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare'', especially the Ultranationalists, who purposefully are bombing whole villages.
** And from ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyWorldAtWar'', Sgt. Reznov. He ''really'' likes killing Nazis. And also from ''[=WaW=]'', the soldiers from the ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies'' mode. They're quite involved in their zombie killing.

* ''VideoGame/{{Killzone}}''
** Colonel Cobar from ''Killzone: Liberation''. When he was still a private during the formation of the Helghast military, he shot his military instructor for stopping a training operation because another recruit was wounded. His ascension to colonel made it worse: mere days into the invasion of Vekta, he captured, tortured and dismembered three ISA council members in Sedah City.
** Rico from the same series takes it up a step further, [[DesignatedHero and apparently is a good guy]]. His questionable tactics include wielding a heavy machine gun during a hostage situation and not settling for stealth when Helghast can be killed. It gets bad in ''Killzone 2'' when Templar decides in some strange fashion that he is worthy of not only heading up Alpha but also getting the charge to capture Visari. [[spoiler:Guess how it ends.]] In the manual for the first game, it's stated he was a Rhino Squad member, who were known for being unnecessarily violent.

* ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'': The Beast from ''Advance Wars: Days of Ruin'' might not seem like one, but Caulder addresses him as "Sergeant" at one point before noting that he no longer considers himself military. The implication is that the Beast was ''always'' the hateful, kill-crazy man he became AfterTheEnd, and the only difference is that he no longer has the chain of command to hold him back.
* Pretty much all of the Sith Troopers in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', but the students at the Sith Academy on Korriban particularly stand out in that they basically spend their time showcasing their sociopathy in the hopes of being noticed by their superiors. [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Mandalorians]] also count, including Canderous in your party.
** The [[DesignatedHero Republic]] Trooper PlayerCharacter him/herself can be one if Dark Side options are taken in the MMO spin-off ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic''.
* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'':
** U.B.C.S. [[SergeantRock Sergeant]] [[FormerRegimePersonnel Nicholai Ginovaef]] of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', an ex-soldier turned [[HiredGuns mercenary]] is this trope to a "T", plotting to murder all of his colleagues so that he can receive their pay. He's also a BadassNormal who somehow manages to survive the game, making your life a living hell the entire time.
** U.S.S. team leader [[NoNameGiven HUNK]], alias "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Mr. Death]]", of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' is a totally cold-blooded version, who willingly leaves his teammates to die in furtherance of his mission, and doesn't care at all about the civilians his team guns down. He earned said alias because of a reputation for being the SoleSurvivor of a number of missions. Despite apparently being intended as an insult, [[InsultBackfire HUNK sees it as a point of pride]] and seems to think that this makes him immortal or invincible.
** Generally speaking, the Umbrella Security Service (U.S.S.) and Umbrella Bioweapon Countermeasures Service (U.B.C.S.) seem to attract a lot of these guys. Given the nature of the work and the fact that most of them are FormerRegimePersonnel or professional [[HiredGuns mercenaries]], this is unsurprising. The entire business is headed up by ColonelKilgore Sergei Vladimir.
** Jack Krauser from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' and ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilTheDarksideChronicles''. Originally career military with side gigs as a mercenary, Krauser was driven over the edge after suffering a CareerEndingInjury to his left arm. He faked his own death, joining [[BigBad Wesker]]'s organization in pursuit of greater power through Umbrella's viruses. His former partner, Leon, is shocked at Krauser's transformation into a deranged, war-paint wearing BloodKnight.
* Vile from the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' series fits this trope to a T. Because of an irreparable short-circuit in his brain, he absolutely LOVES destroying Mavericks, and even moreso causing as much collateral damage as he can while retiring Mavericks, which was partially the reason why he ended up being branded a Maverick himself later on (the other being his rebellious attitude towards his superiors).
* In ''VideoGame/MegaManX4'', Frost Walrus of the Repliforce's Arctic unit qualifies as this. Frost Walrus was a short-tempered, rowdy Reploid whose destructive behavior got him marked for disposal as a Maverick. However, he was saved when General gave him a chance to join the Repliforce, a military organization of Reploids. Walrus would continue his violent ways, and felt that rampaging through enemies was a military man's duty. When the Great Repliforce War started, Walrus was impressed as it was a perfect excuse for him to riot as much as he liked. Walrus was stationed at Repliforce's base in a snowy region and put in charge of guarding their secret weapon under construction. The Hunters eventually found out about the secret project, and dispatched members of their elite team to stop Walrus. Walrus refused to surrender or stop his actions in the coup d'etat, and the Hunters were forced to destroy him in battle for his Maverick actions, his luck finally running out.
** He is even worse in the manga. After butchering an entire squadron of Maverick Hunters who were out to stop his rampaging, he kept their corpses encased in ice chambers as port as a trophy collection of his victims. When the Colonel of the Repliforce repimanded him for such misconduct, in a temper tantrum he released several Maverick Hunter prisoners and told them to run for their lives, only to viciously hunt them down for sport and kill each of them with his ice powers, save one, who was saved by X and ex-Maverick Blizzard Buffalo, the latter being reformed in the manga as a hunter. After Walrus viciously injured X into unconsciousness, Buffalo went to fight Walrus alone, who brutually murdered him by impaling Buffalo with a Frost Tower attack. Repliforce leader General had enough of Walrus's evil deeds and brutally shot him down during his second encounter with X as a punishment for his previous misconduct and to save X's life.
* An almost uniform trait of Caesar's Legion in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas''. Rape, pillaging, enslaving, and burning are standard procedure. Legionares despise weakness and will kill anyone who doesn't serve the Legion - soldiers, civilians, women, children, old people. What we call war crimes, they call tactical maneuvers. Their top field commander slaughters his own troops to keep them in line. Even Caesar himself, who is regarded as a godly figure by his troops and is trying to build a better world, is sadly aware that his Legion has yet to become more than just a horde.
* Blackwatch from ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}''. The regular Marines in Manhattan view them with disgust, rightfully so; several Web of Intrigue memories show them murdering civilians for the hell of it. And ''laughing''.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Depending on how you play the game, Commander Shepard can be one of these, especially with the Ruthless background in ''VideoGame/MassEffect1''. Deconstructed by the third game, where continuing to play this character type means [[spoiler:you have to deliberately stab several allied characters in the back, most particularly Mordin Solus.]]
* ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' (2010 version): Voodoo is a very self-restrained version. He doesn't kill anyone he shouldn't, but he ''does'' give it serious consideration on more than one occasion. His teammates make sure to [[VitriolicBestBuds tease him for this.]]
* [[spoiler:Captain Martin Walker]] from ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' is a Broken Soldier. [[spoiler:After the White Phosphorus incident that happens early on in the game, Walker goes from being a sensible soldier to slowly cracking under the pressure and becoming a raving madman with a hero complex. How quickly he does so depends on the player in some instances.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Homefront}}'' the Korean soldiers spend the first few minutes at the beginning of the game brutalizing American citizens. A group of them shot a couple in front of their own child, and the Resistance sees that the Koreans are killing the prisoners and burying them in mass graves.
* In ''VideoGame/AlphaProtocol'' the [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Veteran Combat Initiative]] exclusively recruits from the dishonorably discharged and "borderline types" who have difficulty returning to civilian life.
* Agent Jack Hunter, also known as [[VideoGame/GoldenEyeRogueAgent Goldeneye]]. He's unique in that he's sadistic and careless--he wastes time hurting his enemies. MI-6 has no use for him, but SPECTRE, on the other hand...
* Niko Bellic from ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' says he was surrounded by people like this in the Serbian wars but he himself is not one (although a lot of the blood he shed went beyond what was required in the line of duty, [[ShellShockedVeteran which disturbs him]]).
* Subverted with Trevor Phillips of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', who despite completing his training as a helicopter pilot for the [[UsefulNotes/CanucksWithChinooks Royal Canadian Air Force]], failed the psychological evaluation which prevented him from actually joining.
* Frank Horrigan from ''VideoGame/Fallout2''. He's easily one of the most psychotic and ruthless characters in the game, and possibly the entire series. He was bad enough in the Pre-War United States and became much worse after F.E.V. exposure turned him into a Super Mutant and the Enclave made him their top enforcer, outfitting him with the finest life support, PoweredArmor, and firepower.
* ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' has Hyde, of the psychopath variety. He joined the military as an alternative to jail time and was promptly assigned to the Chemtroopers, soldiers equipped with flesh and armor melting chemical weapons. While there, he refused to wear the filter mask so he could look into the eyes of the people he killed.
* Cliff Hudson from ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' is [[ShellShockedVeteran Broken Soldier]], being a psychopath in the game due to having [[TragicVillain a Vietnam flashback triggered by hearing his daughter getting ripped to shreds by zombies]]. He comes back to his senses after Frank West defeats him.
* The Spartan-III Program in ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' is partly designed to produce this. The recruits were chosen exclusively from orphaned children of Covenant attacks on Outer Colonies, most of which were 4-6 years old, and were raised and trained on the sole promise that they'd one day be able to avenge their families by killing every Covenant warrior. The result was several companies of peerless fighters fully willing to participate in [[LaserGuidedTykebomb suicide attacks to take out entire Covenant worlds]]. Headhunters [[Literature/HaloEvolutions Roland and Jonah]] exemplify the attitude, taking absolute glee in mowing down and mutilating Covenant soldiers while fueled by the memory of their glassed homeworlds.
** [[VideoGame/HaloReach Emile-A239]] is another Spartan-III example whose life is defined by the pleasure he takes killing Covenant. His superiors specifically mention that it's best for everyone that he be fielded solely against Covenant targets; his brutality is ill-suited against human Insurrectionists who could very well garner sympathy from the public if his methods were showcased.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'': Most of the in-game unit audio will either have them take a dispassionate attitude towards engaging the enemy or display PatrioticFervor. However, there are a few that just come across as psychopaths who are in it ''for'' the killing, such as the Soviet Desolator units, Yuri's ColdSniper DarkActionGirl Virus, and half the GLA army.
** ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'':
*** Cryo Legionnaires are recruited from the Peacekeepers on a physical basis but also need to fit a psychological profile Futuretech claims is necessary for the job. Going by the Soviet campaign, said mindset is that of someone who would deliberately jetpack onto utterly helpless victims to shatter them and then laugh about it. And then there's the ice puns...
*** Similarly, Harbinger pilots are said to be a tad too enthusiastic about their jobs, and are arrogant ''even for air force pilots''.
*** Desolators are MaddenedIntoMisanthropy, being terminally-ill patients outfitted with crude cybernetics that allow them to breathe the fumes of their hideous flesh-melting chemical weapons (and ''only'' the fumes, they choke on fresh air) that violate more than 70 laws of warfare. With a life expectancy of about a year (when said cybernetics break down), there's no surprise that they're a little bitter.
---->They look too happy!

* ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'': PlayedForLaughs. Maliwan's ground troops are ''ridiculously'' sociopathic, gleefully killing everyone in their path for the crime of [[OneNationUnderCopyright not using Maliwan products]]. The commander of the assault on Athenas shamelessly admits he's got an inferiority complex and is burning down the planet to impress his big brother, said big brother proudly says he taught his little brother everything he knows about murdering, and a random private reads aloud a little girl's diary about her horrible life as if it's a hilarious story.
-->'''Private Beans:''' Hey guys, stop burning down people's homes for a second and listen to this!
* Throughout ''VideoGame/StarWarsRepublicCommando'', your squad worries (with good reason) that Sev is starting to cross the line from BoisterousBruiser into this trope:
-->'''Sev''': (''in a wistful, euphoric tone'') Nothing better than a jungle hunt. Hiding in a bush, putting a plasma bolt through a hostile's cranium... ''makes me feel alive''...
* In ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', the Kremel mercenaries participated and rejoiced in the mutilation, mass burning and rapes of civilians in a war of colonial racism (they "kill almost exclusively black people", as the player character can put it). In the game, they launch a pointless assault on dockworkers after the political control they were dispatched to achieve was already given up for reasons far beyond their control or responsibility. The characters, while monsters, are at least somewhat sympathetic due to the fact that they were used in a war amongst huge powers that had nothing to do with them. All of them are traumatised by what they were forced through, and all have developed alcoholism as a result. Korty, in particular, ringleads the assault due to impotent rage over failing to handle the political situation, and grief over the murder of his brother.

* The guy in this Webcomic/KarateBears "distinguishes" himself on the battlefield by [[http://www.karatebears.com/2011/12/distinguished-soldier.html mangling and eating an enemy]]
* In ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'', most of the soldiers of the Souballo Empire are portrayed as the first flavor.
* Most of the cast of ''Webcomic/GoneWithTheBlastwave'' cross this trope with ArmedFarces and ComedicSociopathy. They're by and large a bunch of apathetic, incompetent, manic-depressive bunglers, but they're still soldiers. They run the gamut of the scale -- most are Unwilling Conscripts, Broken Soldiers, or a combination of the two, but a few are in the Psychopath category. There aren't many Jingos in the cast, mostly because almost no one seems to care who they're fighting for or against.
* Florence from ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' mentions that the first UpliftedAnimal project was with chimpanzees. We later learn that it was an intentional attempt to make sociopathic super-soldiers, which went [[GoneHorriblyRight horribly right]] because the chimps could not be controlled and would turn on their allies when there were no enemies left to kill. [[spoiler: [[MadScientist Doctor John Bowman]], Florence's creator, is the only surviving uplifted chimpanzee, who left the military with the help of a veterans' association to study neurology.]]

* In the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' mythos, it's harder to list a Decepticon or Predacon who ''[[MySpeciesDothProtestTooMuch doesn't]]'' fit this trope than one who does. Though, seeing as the faction was founded by a sadistic madmachine and his like-minded followers, it's not hard to see why. Even the occasional Autobot or Maximal fits, though they are usually only [[TokenEvilTeammate tolerated]] if they are especially effective. Even then, they're kept on a short leash.

* PBS documentary ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7cZuhqSzzc Genocide: Worse Than War]]'' seems to go more in depth about the first kind.

* ''Film/HoodedAngels'': The Confederate militia who raze Silver Creek, killing the men and children and raping the women, in the dying days of the Civil War.
* Captain Hezekiah Holt in ''Film/{{Mohawk}}'', who promotes himself to Colonel after Colonel Hawkes is killed; forces his civilian interpreter to take up arms; tortures prisoners for information; murders civilians, including priests; stabs a prisoner of war in the back; and forces his men to accompany him on mission of personal vengeance rather than taking them to safety.
* ''Film/WrathOfMan'': Two members of Jackson's crew show different forms of this. Brad has failed to adapt to civilian life and is itching for a new "mission" to end his boredom, with no care about who gets hurt. Jan seems generally unstable and has poor impulse control, leading him to [[spoiler:kill Jackson and Bullet to steal the money from their final heist]]. [[spoiler:Bullet]] only reveals this at the end when he guns down [[spoiler:Fortico guards he personally trained]] with no apparent emotion.
* Frieda's brother Richard in ''Film/{{Frieda}}''. A former German soldier, he had been captured and allowed to volunteer for the Polish Army. However, he is still [[ThoseWackyNazis an unrepentant Nazi]], who believes that Germans will band together and forge a new Reich. However, having been fighting his entire adult life, he has no interest in or use for peace, and delivers an angry rant to Frieda about how he wants to see the war continue forever.

* Mentioned in Literature/{{Discworld}}'s ''Literature/{{Night Watch|Discworld}}'', where ''Sergeant'' Carcer is described as "the sort that joins up for the looting... the kind you have to end up hanging as an example to the men".
* Troopers Lijah Cuu and Murtan Feygor in the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novels, though the latter tends to be held in check by [[ColonelBadass Colonel-Commissar Gaunt]].
* ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': TokenEvilTeammate Tybalt leads an entire company of these in ''Defender of the Crown''. Most of them are Jingos and Broken Soldiers (when asked why they are torturing captives, two of them explain that they witnessed their loved ones being slaughtered by the enemy and now it's payback time), but more than a few are outright Psychopaths.
* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', most knights and men-at-arms conform to this trope, particularly those assigned to raid and despoil peasant villages for information and supplies. One character gives a sympathetic monologue that any man conscripted into war can become this way if he survives long enough.
** [[AxeCrazy Gregor Clegane]] is a Psychopath. He only fights under Tywin for a chance to hurt people, and when he's not soldiering he's murdering and raping people for his own amusement. He seems to have been this before he became a soldier; as a child, he burnt his brother's face when they tried playing with a toy he didn't want anyway and is rumored to have murdered his father and sister. The men under him, such as the jolly but cruel rapist Chiswyck, the FauxAffablyEvil Raff "the Sweetling", and TortureTechnician "The Tickler" also count. Averted slightly by Shitmouth, a foul-mouthed fellow who treats the prisoners slightly more kindly, giving them extra food if they ask.
** The Brave Companions, better and more accurately known as the Bloody Mummers, are an entire group of these. They’re sellswords but they take jobs to fight in war not for the pay, but for the opportunity to rape, murder, torture, and pillage to their hearts’ content.
* Andrea from ''The Zone'' series of WorldWarIII novels by James Rouch. A stunningly beautiful East German woman with a MysteriousPast and a passionate hatred of communists. She bonds with various soldiers (though never sexually) long enough to absorb their specialist skills, then callously severs the connection to move on to the next teacher. Warning: Keep away from prisoners.
* ''Literature/TheThingsTheyCarried'' has Azar, who, at one point, [[KickTheDog blows up a squad member's puppy]] and mocks everyone. At one point, when he's scared shitless, he claims his {{Jerkass}}ery is a defense against fear, but he's probably lying again to save his ass.
-->'''Azar:''' Christ, I'm just a ''boy''.
* Hakeswill in ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}''. Senior officers love him (except the ones with real integrity and/or insight into what he actually is) because he defers to them completely and whips soldiers into terrified obedience. Everyone who knows what he's really like loathes him.
** Brigadier Guy Loup is an example from the French side. When the Riflemen capture two of his men responsible for a particularly brutal massacre of a Spanish village, Sharpe has them executed on the spot. He has no shortage of volunteers for the firing squad.
* Corporal Lehto in Väinö Linna's ''Literature/TheUnknownSoldier''. He is a complete sociopath, bully, and ruthless to both enemy and his own squad. His end is tragic: [[spoiler:he walks into an ambush in night fight, gets shot and wounded on his spine, gets paralyzed and shoots himself because he considers himself now as cripple and bottom of the pecking order. He doesn't give himself any more mercy or respect than to anyone else, and sees suicide as the only logical conclusion.]]
* In Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''The Great War'' trilogy, one of the [[SympatheticPOV PoV]] characters is Gordon [=McSweeny=], a charming Corporal who, being staunchly Protestant, believes himself to the instrument of God's wrath upon the Confederates, and turned down a command post multiple times. This is because he enjoys personally killing them. ''With his FLAMETHROWER.'' He's only slightly nicer to the men under his command; one time not mourning one's death, because he was Greek Orthodox and therefore a heretic, even if he was a nice guy.
** Lieutenant Boris Lavochkin, in ''Settling Accounts'' is even nuttier, burning and slaughtering his way across the Confederacy. You don't feel particularly bad for his victims (they are after all ANaziByAnyOtherName), but he's still very much this trope, as his sergeant, [[SympatheticPOV Chester Martin]] repeatedly lampshades. On the other side, there are the [[StateSec Freedom Party Guards]] who to say the least, aren't very nice. What do you expect from SS expies?

* In Creator/TomClancy's ''Literature/RedStormRising'', KGB soldiers tend to be portrayed this way, as specifically distinguished from Red Army troops. This is apparent in a scene during the Iceland occupation where [[LittleHeroBigWar Lt. Edwards]] comes upon a farmhouse whose occupants have been raped and murdered by KGB troops. He rescues the sole surviving daughter in BigDamnHeroes fashion and then proceeds to mete out summary justice to the rapists.

* Most of the [[{{Mutant}} once-men]] in Creator/TerryBrooks's ''Literature/TheWordAndTheVoid'' and ''Literature/TheGenesisOfShannara'' are like this.
* Anaster, the First Child of the [[ILoveTheDead Dead Seed]], from the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' is a crowning example. Introduced in the third book, ''Literature/MemoriesOfIce'', he's an EmptyShell of a DeathSeeker who commits atrocities in the hopes of forcing someone to kill him and leads an army of cannibals on a rampage across the continent, butchering everything in his path seemingly for the sake of it.
* Dale in ''Literature/TheThinRedLine'' is a pre-Vietnam example -- a rather slow-witted yet ambitious soldier who seems to take pleasure in doing horrible things to the enemy.
** Another sergeant in the unit (in an internal monologue) reveals that he is nearly psychopathic, showing that he sees the enemy, civilians, and his own men as merely things he hasn't killed yet. The end of his chapter is the sentence "I HATE EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT IN ME."
* Redmond Barry a.k.a. Film/BarryLyndon became one of these while fighting in the Seven Years War. It's implied that Barry's hellish treatment in the [[TheSpartanWay Prussian army]] contributed to him being this way and enthusiastically joining in "foraging" (read RapePillageAndBurn). There's a kind of disturbing scene where in a surprisingly gentle tone he describes a foppish and inexperienced opponent whose skull he bashed in with his musket and whose corpse he looted.
* Sergeant Bothari of the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' is a more complex version of this. He is a sadistic sociopath but has enough conscience to realise that random killing is wrong. So he uses military regulations to tell him when it is OK to kill. His commanding officers learn to think very carefully before taking off his leash.

* In the backstory of Creator/RichardKMorgan's ''Literature/BlackMan'', several nations attempted to genetically and socially engineer Sociopathic {{Super Soldier}}s. The projects collectively [[GoneHorriblyRight Went Horribly Right]], creating the protagonist (initially an Unwilling Conscript shading into a Broken Soldier) and several of the antagonists (Types II and III).
* ''[[Literature/SpaceForce2018 Space Force]]'' by Jeremy Robinson: Hale believes all of the Russian Ops soldiers are conscienceless killers they don't help their case by gunning down the unarmed Canadian soldiers attempting to talk with them. Averted by Ivan who is a pleasant individual despite his odd qualities.
* In the ''Literature/TakeshiKovacs Series'', also written by Morgan[[note]]and close enough to ''Thirteen'' that many speculate they take place later in the same universe[[/note]], the UN Protectorate's Envoys recruit borderline psychopaths with just the right mix of inhibition and sense of duty. Most end up resorting to crime after they muster out, the titular character usually works as a detective, bodyguard, or mercenary. According to Kovacs, they prefer to recruit from more conventional militaries as they cultivate that mindset. Though it's not entirely clear where along the scale he falls given how often he mentions his pre-recruitment adolescence as a gangbanger.
* In ''The Short-Timers'', a Vietnam War-era novel by Gustav Hasford, Animal Mother is ''the'' sociopathic Marine, although by the end almost all members of the Lusthog Squad display signs of this to a lesser degree. In TheFilmOfTheBook, ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', this is somewhat overshadowed by the character of the "door-gunner" who sets altogether new levels of sociopathy.
* Marshal Karen Skyre from ''Literature/DinosaurFrontier'' does not need much an excuse to torture or kill. She enjoys playing games with her victims and being cruel to anything in her way. In the opening chapter, she runs over a fleeing deserter with her truck and later opens fire with a fully automatic machine gun into a crowd of people which included children.

* In the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' novel ''Ideal War'', WideEyedIdealist Paul Masters is sent to investigate the planet Gibson and discovers the "small conflict" there is actually a planet-wide rebellion featuring all four kinds of this trope on both sides. Not much of a surprise, given that the book is an {{Anvilicious}} metaphor for the Vietnam War.

** The soldiers who pursue Rouvray and D'Argenson in "The Reign of Terror," are little more than murderous thugs.

* ''Series/{{Justified}}'' gives us Colton Rhodes, a Broken Soldier type whose heroin addiction and inability to cope with his Iraq and Afghan war trauma drives him into becoming a ProfessionalKiller.

* From the third verse of Music/JohnDenver's ''Stonehaven Sunset'':
-->Stonehaven sunset, the city's on fire. The soldiers just [[SlasherSmile smile]] and say, "[[PsychoForHire this gun's for hire]]". Give into the beast, boy, give into the thrill, [[HumansAreBastards it's just human nature]], to hunt and to kill...
* One of the numerous dysfunctional soldiers mentioned in Music/TomLehrer's song "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier", on ''Music/AnEveningWastedWithTomLehrer'', is Pete. He stabbed a cop in seventh grade and joined the Army because they'd give him better weapons than he could get on the street. He's described as "real RA material". Although given his platoon is lead by a Georgian ex-con, he probably is.
* ''The End of the Thirty Years War'' by Jacek Kaczmarski epitomizes this trope in an extremely graphic way.
* Music/HuskerDu's "You're a Soldier" matches the exuberance of its titular sociopathic soldier in music.
-->''Patrolling the world with your little boy face''\\
''And a grown-up gun that shoots''\\
''You've got a fresh-scrubbed teenage outlook on terror''\\
''And a khaki attitude.''

* The VillainProtagonist of Music/DavidBowie's [[BlackComedy darkly humorous]] "Running Gun Blues", a track from ''Music/TheManWhoSoldTheWorld'', is a psychopath who won't let a cease-fire get in the way of a perfectly good killing spree.
-->''It seems the peacefuls stopped the war\\
Left generals squashed and stifled\\
But I'll slip out again tonight\\
Cause they haven't taken back my rifle\\
For I promote oblivion\\
And I'll plug a few civilians''

* Elite Agent Rotor in Roleplay/DinoAttackRPG. When he's not mercilessly blowing his enemies to kingdom come, we see him threatening to execute his own men and torturing prisoners.

* The indie RPG ''[[http://bullypulpitgames.com/games/carolina-death-crawl/ Carolina Death Crawl]]'' focuses on a band of Union soldiers attempting to make their way out from Confederate lines while haunted by the evils they have committed in war. The game's prologue begins by detailing the characters' sociopathic prior actions, such as robbery, abuse of civilians, slavering, child murder and committing terrible war crimes on orders, and proceeds with them drawing cards from suits called "KILL", "DISGRACE" and "DESTROY" depending on their evil actions taken place in-game. Dead characters return as ghosts and punish survivors for their crimes until only one person gets out alive.
* Unsurprisingly common in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech''. For the most part, they're Jingos and Psychopaths- any unit with a Fanatical devotion rating is guaranteed to have plenty of Jingos, for example. Unwilling Conscripts are much rarer because Battlemechs, Aerospace Fighters, and even Battle Armor are far too expensive to waste on conscripts, so infantry units are generally the only places they can be found. A lot of Broken Soldiers got created by the Word of Blake Jihad when people who'd joined the Word of Blake suddenly found out that the Word had picked a fight with every other faction in existence and was busy committing war crimes like they had quotas to meet. The knowledge that everyone else was coming for them and they could expect no mercy drove a lot of Blakists who weren't already fanatical (see The Jingo) over the DespairEventHorizon and turned them into Broken Soldiers.

* In the Xbox/[=PS2=] game ''Shellshock'', there are numerous times where your squad massacres civilians even if you don't take part in it. In the second mission, you go to search a village for weapons and a single Vietcong. Or, after you round up everyone in the village, you can start shooting and the others will join in and gun down all the villagers, accomplishing the same objective. Later on, you also kill wounded amputees in a Vietcong hospital. Plus, one of your squadmates ([[MeaningfulName whose name is literally "Psycho"]]) constantly kills [=POWs=] in cutscenes and helps the South Vietnamese commissar torture people.
* ''VideoGame/SabresOfInfinity'' Cazarosta, his hatred of the Antari, indifference to the horrors of war and his casual disregard of the rules of engagement amount to this.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' gives us Henry:
-->'''Avatar:''' Those deaths were necessary. We had to kill our foes or be killed ourselves. But killing the enemy isn't the same as sacrificing innocents for victory.\\
'''Henry:''' Seems like an arbitrary line to me.

* The eponymous player characters in ''VideoGame/{{Mercenaries}}'' have the option of doing this. Then again, there are massive penalties for killing civilians.

* Along similar lines to Kimblee, Sir [[BloodKnight Luciano Bradley]] of ''Anime/CodeGeass'' is a PsychoForHire type who actually comments that he loves the military as it allows him to kill lots of people and get rewarded for doing so. Bradley even states he doesn't even care about the rewards, he just loves that being in the military lets him take what he believes people value the most: their lives. He's also one of [[TheEmpire Britannia's]] [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Knights of the Round]], and takes full advantage of his status to cause as much carnage as he possibly can on the battlefield, caring nothing for the misery he causes.
** And at least a good chunk of the Britannian troops qualify as this, too. If a few simple words from your superior is enough to get you to gun down unarmed civilians without a sweat, there might be something wrong with you.

* Floch Forter in ''Manga/AttackOnTitan''. He starts as an naive yet cowardly soldier, but after [[spoiler:becoming the SoleSurvivor of the suicide charge against the Beast Titan]] he develops a bitter, ruthless and psychotic personality. He pours gasoline into residential buildings, praises Eren's rampage (whick kills multiple civilians and children), gleefully talks about slaughtering the rest of humanity, advocates murdering ChildSoldiers in cold blood, gleefully executes foreigners, poisons his own superiors with [[spoiler:Titan spinal fluid]], and overall becomes ANaziByAnyOtherName.

* ''Manga/KagerouNostalgia'': The vast majority of the soldiers in [[EvilOverlord General Kiyotaka Kuroda's]] employ fit into this category. Given that they're sent into battle alongside demons, with orders to butcher and kidnap as many civilians as possible, this is more or less a part of the job description.
* Several ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' villains, although given the nature of the setting comparing them to regular soldiers is iffy. Pre-HeelFaceTurn Gaara is a solid example though, as are all 7 Swordsmen of the Mist.
* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'':
** In his backstory, the leader of the Special Forces unit Grey Fox killed a gang of these (led by a ColonelKilgore type) to protect Vietnamese civilians.
** Roberta professes that she was the Jingo while she served in the FARC, killing without remorse to protect the ideals of the Revolution.
* The Black Dog Knights from ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' are an army of the worst rapists, murderers, and thieves that Midland has to offer. They're led by [[PsychoForHire Wyald]], a real piece of work of an Apostle who enjoys doing horrible things to people for his own enjoyment.
* ''Manga/DogSoldier'' has Col. Harry, Hiba's former commanding officer.
* Kuroi from ''Manga/ThouShaltNotDie'' is a clear sociopath. The only person he cares about is [[MoralityPet Mashiro]]; anybody else is expendable, and he will not lift a finger to save them unless [[MoralityChain Mashiro]] orders him to. He will also kill anyone he sees as a threat to Mashiro or his relationship with her at the drop of the hat.
* ''Literature/TheSagaOfTanyaTheEvil'': Tanya is an unusual example of an Unwilling Conscript playing the part of a Jingo, as she is a pacifist callously concerned only with her own self-preservation, and joined the military at a young age in hopes of improving her lot in life and working her way into a cushy desk job away from the front lines. Unfortunately, her combat acumen is so great that she constantly finds herself being sent to the frontlines and vents her rage and frustration on her enemies -- making her come across as the Psychopath.
* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun'':
** In [[AffablyEvil Ringo Roadagain]]'s backstory, he's antagonized by a nameless soldier who defected from the Union during the Civil War. This soldier proceeded to murder Ringo's mother and sisters, before attempting to [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rape]] Ringo, who was only [[PaedoHunt 10 years old]] at the time.
** Axl RO was a soldier who fought during the Civil War, and was responsible for hundreds of deaths. However, in the present day, this trope gets {{subverted|trope}} due to Axl feeling immense SurvivorGuilt for all the deaths he caused and wanting to [[TheAtoner atone]] for his sins, which ended up manifesting as his [[FightingSpirit Stand]], Civil War.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', the Comedian [[KickTheDog shoots a pregnant woman to death]] while serving in Vietnam [[LackOfEmpathy without a hint of remorse]]. And it was his baby.
** The Comedian then immediately calls out Dr. Manhattan for not doing anything to stop him despite being [[PhysicalGod all-powerful]]. From his perspective, ''Dr. Manhattan'' is a sociopathic soldier. This has spawned MANY fanfics where Dr. Manhattan teleported the baby to X.
* ''Every single soldier'' who appears in ''ComicBook/{{DMZ}}'' is depicted in almost uniform fashion as one of these. It gets fairly ridiculous and ''really'' [[{{Anvilicious}} fucking ham fisted]] after a while. Almost as if being a sociopath is a required trait in order for one to qualify as a soldier.
* Deconstructed in the ''ComicBook/TwoFistedTales'' short story "Kill!", set in the Korean War. On the American side, we have Abner, who continuously sharpens his knife and can't wait to gut some Chinese, while in the Chinese camp we meet Li, who obsessively polishes his submachine gun and compares it to a beautiful woman. [[spoiler:In the end, they meet in the field, mortally wound each other and both die unceremoniously]].
* ''Shooting War'' had one of these who was also TheFundamentalist.
* In ''ComicBook/SinCity'', Marv briefly mentions fighting in a war. It's possible that this could be one of the reasons for his mental state.
** Also oddly averted with Wallace. Given Sin City's penchant for violent heroes, Wallace is a former Navy SEAL, yet is one of the nicest characters in the series.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Route 666}}'', Berkely went to war just to sate his bloodthirst - when the war ended, he became a serial killer instead. He wanted to team up with Cassie just so he could kill with a fairly clean conscience again.

* Artificial humans in ''ComicBook/{{Copperhead}}'' straddle types 2 and 3. As engineered soldiers they are genetically predisposed to enjoy violence; as rational human beings, they're completely aware they're being manipulated to the ends of whoever made them and resentful of their position.
* The ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story "The Ugly American" deals with one. He was initially just a patriotic man who was sent to prison for murdering a protester of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. The government decided to make him a SuperSoldier by amplifying his patriotism and his combat skills but went ''way'' too far and went after ''anyone'' that he thought wasn't "American" in his eyes. He escapes and Batman deals with him, but when the government kills the soldier, he calls them out and vows to reveal everything.
* This is Franchise/WonderWoman's oft enemy Ares' natural state. Wondy generally faces off against him when he goes OmnicidalManiac or tries overtly influencing humanity, but generally, he believes WarIsHell and revels in it and joins armed conflict as either an overeager unregistered conscript or by possessing soldiers who are present. To make matters worse his presence is enough to influence others to behave more in this line.

* Marcus Black was a former Atlas soldier in ''Fanfic/TheBlackHearts''. He was a Psychopath who only joined to kill people and sate his bloodlust.

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* The military in most of George Romero's ''Film/LivingDeadSeries''. [[WriterOnBoard Just because.]]
** And notably subverted in Romero's final film, ''Film/SurvivalOfTheDead'' - not only the soldiers are the main characters, [[PerspectiveFlip they are the same characters]] who robbed the protagonists of ''Film/DiaryOfTheDead''.

* Almost the entire Japanese Army in ''Film/CityOfLifeAndDeath''. It's a movie about the Rape of Nanking, so that goes without saying.
* In Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/SleepyHollow1999'', the Headless Horseman was one of these in life. While the other Hessians were mercenaries, he went to fight in America for the [[BloodKnight love of killing]], and loss of life, head, and will hasn't abated that love.
* The soldiers in ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''. Besides the OnlySaneMan, the CO wants nubile women to try and keep the rest of his soldiers under control. Think about that for a minute.
* Sergeant Tony Meserve in ''Film/CasualtiesOfWar''. He kidnaps, rapes, and kills a young village girl, then tries to kill PFC Eriksson with a grenade in the latrine.
* Paul Lazzaro in ''Film/SlaughterhouseFive''. This is clearly defined when he recounts the story of killing a dog by putting some clock parts into a steak that he gives to the dog that bit him. Any time someone makes him angry, he threatens that person with violence, then [[spoiler:in the end of the movie, he kills Billy Pilgrim, just as he said he would.]]
* PBS documentary ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7cZuhqSzzc Genocide: Worse Than War]]'' seems to go more in depth about the first kind.

** Leone revisits the trope in ''Film/DuckYouSucker'' (aka ''Film/AFistfulOfDynamite'') in the form of the Mexican soldiers serving under [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Colonel Gunther Reza]]. The Mexican army as conceived by Leone seems intent on imprisoning or killing every single person they meet, and their look is modelled on that of the fascist stormtroopers and German soldiers that Leone saw in Italy when he was a child. Reza himself is a terrifying Psychopath and ImplacableMan to boot, despite [[SilentAntagonist never saying a word]].
* Ewan [=McStarley=], Vinnie Jones' character in ''Film/TheCondemned2007''-- a SAS operative who became a CondemnedContestant after setting fire to a Rwandan village, executing 17 men, raping 9 women, and torturing various others.
* ''Film/XMenFilmSeries''
** William Stryker. Although a superior officer.
** Victor Creed in ''Film/XMenOriginsWolverine'', considering his attempted rape of a local during Vietnam, as well as the implied killing of civilians while firing from a helicopter during the same war. Probably caused by having spent the last hundred years as an unkillable soldier giving him a taste for brutality.
* All the PrivateMilitaryContractors in ''Film/{{Avatar}}'', particularly Wainfleet[[note]]who was likely inspired by the character from ''Film/FullMetalJacket''[[/note]], as well as all the pilots other than Trudy, with them all being led by a ColonelKilgore.
* A lot of the soldiers in ''Film/{{Platoon}}'' show some evidence of this, but the undoubtedly and unashamedly sociopathic are Barnes and Bunny, who seem to only really feel satisfied with themselves when engaged in some form of gratuitous violence, killing, rape, destruction, etc.
** Barnes, at least, is trying to win the war but isn't going to do it with, as he sees it, one hand tied behind his back. For Barnes, the end justifies the means. Bunny is purely there for the killing; end and means are one.
* In the ''Film/{{Doom}}'' movie, Sarge shows himself to be this, at one point [[spoiler:killing the rookie member of his team for refusing his order to kill a room full of unarmed civilians]]. Small wonder, then, that he [[spoiler:mutates into the protagonist's final adversary after becoming infected]].
* ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'' grows closer and closer to this trope as the movie goes on, finally culminating in [[spoiler:the massacre at Tafas.]]

* ''Film/Conspiracy2001'': Deconstructed. SS Major Rudolf Lange is the closest you could get to this, as he's leading one of a number of huge death squads through the occupied Soviet Union shooting unarmed civilians en masse and encouraging racist locals to kill Jews in mobs. However, [[ShellShockedVeteran he and his men are becoming increasingly disturbed]] by the sheer level of inhumanity they're supposed to inhabit. Heydrich introduces the gas chambers to make the murders easier to carry out for the perpetrators.
* ''Film/DejaVu2006'': Carroll is a subversion--he aced every single test to enter the U.S. Army, except the psychological profiling, and thus was not allowed to enter. Still, his combination of skills and honest belief that blowing up a ferry with 300 people (that he also believes were fated to die--they ''were'' on the ferry, after all) in the middle of Mardi Gras is a necessary sacrifice so America goes into a tougher stance on terrorism makes him a perfect example of the 'jingoistic' type of soldier.

* In ''Film/FortMassacre'', Sgt. Vinson is driven by a fanatical hatred of the Apache and puts the lives of the men under his command in danger to fulfill his mission of personal vengeance.
* ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'': Gaston is an ex-soldier, but the basic principle is the same. His [[NightmareFetishist happy thoughts]] about the war include such things as "blood, explosions, and countless widows," and the only reason he hunts animals is to have things he can kill, openly admitting in his VillainSong that he uses inhumane hunting methods in doing so.

* In the backstory of ''Film/MissFisherAndTheCryptOfTears'' (later seen in flashback), Captain Templeton snapped and murdered everyone in the village while his partners were robbing the tomb.

* Nuke from ''ComicBook/DaredevilBornAgain'' is a product of an attempt at making another ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. He's a SuperSoldier with heightened reflexes, drug-fuelled rage, and hardened plastic under his skin. He's also totally off his rocker, thinks he's still fighting UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, and will slaughter anyone he thinks is threatening "our boys"; his gun keeps a count of his kills.

* Ewan [=McStarley=], Vinnie Jones' character in ''Film/TheCondemned''-- a SAS operative who became a CondemnedContestant after setting fire to a Rwandan village, executing 17 men, raping 9 women, and torturing various others.

* In the Xbox/[=PS2=] game ''VideoGame/{{Shellshock}}'', there are numerous times where your squad massacres civilians even if you don't take part in it. In the second mission, you go to search a village for weapons and a single Vietcong. Or, after you round up everyone in the village, you can start shooting and the others will join in and gun down all the villagers, accomplishing the same objective. Later on, you also kill wounded amputees in a Vietcong hospital. Plus, one of your squadmates ([[MeaningfulName whose name is literally "Psycho"]]) constantly kills [=POWs=] in cutscenes and helps the South Vietnamese commissar torture people.

# '''The Broken Soldier:''' He was a NiceGuy once upon a time, just trying to take care of his buddies and protect his home — but then [[DespairEventHorizon he saw or experienced something that broke him inside]], and now he just wants to [[WellIntentionedExtremist get things done as efficiently as possible]].

* The Titans of ''Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam'' were a haven for characters like this. Then again, given that they're led by the likes of [[BigBad Jamitov Hymem]], [[GeneralRipper Bask Ohm]], and [[ManipulativeBastard Paptimus Scirrocco]], this shouldn't be surprising. [[BloodKnight Yazan]] [[MemeticMolester Gable]] is probably the worst, being a PsychoForHire who joined up solely for the chance to kill AEUG supporters.

** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' features the A-LAWS who are more or less a collective {{Expy}} of the Titans; among their number is another of Yazan's expies, Ali Al-Saachez, a PsychoForHire and CardCarryingVillain who freely admits that he loves warfare, and [[EvilIsNotPacifist wouldn't know what to do with himself if an actual world peace was established]]. He later graduates to ColonelKilgore after being given an officer's rank by BigBad Ribbons Almark, whom he becomes TheDragon to.
** Decil Galette of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE'' takes the worst qualities of both Yazan and Ali and combines them into a single, nasty [[EnfantTerrible child-sized]] package, treating war as a game and his victims as toys. The timeskip has not improved him, and the disconcerting enthusiasm he shows whenever's he's turned loose on his enemies is if anything more disturbing on a thirty-three-year-old.
* Two of Noin's former trainees in an episode of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' go this route, sadistically murdering their opponents and laughing over the wreckage. If they weren't members of the army, they'd be [[PsychoForHire Psychos For Hire]].
* Many, many examples in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'', from ZAFT troops executing surrendered Earth Forces personnel, to [[FantasticRacism Blue Cosmos]] lunatics who gleefully launch [[NukeEm nuclear weapons]] at ZAFT's home bases in the Plants. The [[{{Tykebomb}} Extended]] are particularly vicious about it, although [[BrainwashedAndCrazy that's not]] [[PsychoSerum entirely their fault]]. The ZAFT veterans who try to ColonyDrop Earth at the start of ''Seed Destiny'' are an especially good example, as is Yzak Joule before his CharacterDevelopment sets in.
** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'''s spinoff, ''Stargazer'', three sociopathic soldiers serve as [[VillainProtagonist the protagonists]]. They are the [[LackOfEmpathy emotionally damaged]] [[TheStoic Sven Cal Bayan]] (who was left this way after TrainingFromHell and believes he's JustFollowingOrders), the sadistic [[DarkActionGirl Myudi Holcroft]], and the hyper-aggressive [[ScaryBlackMan Shams Couza]]. Acting as a strike team for Blue Cosmos, the three of them see a lot of action; [[spoiler:only Sven makes it out alive.]]

* ''Series/{{Outlander}}: Captain Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall is a [[DepravedBisexual equal opportunity]] rapist and torture who uses his authority to sadistically torture the population of the Scottish Highlands. He particularly enjoys creating ScarpiaUltimatums in which his victims have to decide between being raped and tortured themselves or having their loved one raped and tortured. And he doesn't care if his victims are men, women, or children.

* In the Xbox/[=PS2=] game ''Shellshock'', there are numerous times where your squad massacres civilians even if you don't take part in it. In the second mission, you go to search a village for weapons and a single Vietcong. Or, after you round up everyone in the village, you can start shooting and the others will join in and gun down all the villagers, accomplishing the same objective. Later on, you also kill wounded amputees in a Vietcong hospital. Plus, one of your squadmates ([[MeaningfulName whose name is literally "Psycho"]]) constantly kills [=POWs=] in cutscenes and helps the South Vietnamese commissar torture people.

* The Beast from ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars: Days of Ruin'' might not seem like one, but Caulder addresses him as "Sergeant" at one point before noting that he no longer considers himself military. The implication is that the Beast was ''always'' the hateful, kill-crazy man he became AfterTheEnd, and the only difference is that he no longer has the chain of command to hold him back.

The grunt version of InsaneAdmiral (and sometimes ColonelKilgore or GeneralRipper). Often people below the rank of Sergeant are all around [[JerkAss assholes]] who [[RapePillageAndBurn plunder, rape]], and massacre civilians, or brutally torture and murder the hero's comrades, making killing them less guilt-causing.

** Another sergeant in the unit (in an internal monologue) reveals that he is nearly psychotic, showing that he sees the enemy, civilians, and his own men as merely things he hasn't killed yet. The end of his chapter is the sentence "I HATE EVERYTHING THAT IS NOT IN ME."

* ''Series/BandOfBrothers'' is rather ambiguous with this tropes, but Speirs exhibits traits of a psychotic killer more than once during the series. His men both fear him and tell stories of his brutality. Historians agree the real man was just a brutal soldier but not a murderer.

* Sergeant Bothari of the Literature/VorkosiganSaga is a more complex version of this. He is a sadistic sociopath but has enough conscience to realise that random killing is wrong. So he uses military regulations to tell him when it is OK to kill. His commanding officers learn to think very carefully before taking off his leash.

** Colonel Cobar from ''VideoGame/KillzoneLiberation''. When he was still a private during the formation of the Helghast military, he shot his military instructor for stopping a training operation because another recruit was wounded. His ascension to colonel made it worse: mere days into the invasion of Vekta, he captured, tortured and dismembered three ISA council members in Sedah City.
** Rico from the same series takes it up a step further, [[DesignatedHero and apparently is a good guy]]. His questionable tactics include wielding a heavy machine gun during a hostage situation and not settling for stealth when Helghast can be killed. It gets bad in ''VideoGame/Killzone2'' when Templar decides in some strange fashion that he is worthy of not only heading up Alpha but also getting the charge to capture Visari. [[spoiler:Guess how it ends.]] In the manual for the first game, it's stated he was a Rhino Squad member, who were known for being unnecessarily violent.

** And from ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyWorldAtWar'', Sgt. Reznov. He ''really'' likes killing Nazis. And also from ''[=WaW=]'', the soldiers from the VideoGame/NaziZombies mode. They're quite involved in their zombie killing.

-->They look too happy!

** ''VideoGame/RedAlert3'':

* The main characters of ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' are a group of American Saboteurs who enter Nazi-occupied France to unleash hell upon Nazis from the inside and employ terror tactics. Notable, however, is Hugo Stiglitz, a German-born AxCrazy [[TheStoic Stoic]] who the Basterds recruited due to his reputation of killing 13 officers in their sleep (or waking them up just before he kills them).
** Aldo Raine, the leader of the Basterds, is a pretty hard-core one once you look beneath the surface. He orders his squad to scalp one hundred Nazi soldiers each[[note]]that would total 1200 scalps[[/note]] or die trying, and his personal signature tool of terror is to carve a swastika on the forehead of any soldiers he leaves as the SoleSurvivor as a life-long reminder of which regime they served, even if [[JustFollowingOrders they were completely innocent otherwise]]. When he gets direct orders from command to escort [[OpportunisticBastard Colonel Hans Landa]] and his personal assistant to Allied headquarters and their recompense for double-crossing the Nazis and making Operation Kino a success, Raine unhesitatingly executes the assistant and carves a swastika on Landa's head the moment he's able to, without a care if this may or may not get him in very hot water with his superiors.

** In [[AffablyEvil Ringo Roadagain]]'s backstory, he's antagonized by a nameless soldier who defected from the Union during the Civil War. This soldier proceeded to murder Ringo's mother and sisters, before proceeding to [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil rape]] Ringo, who was only [[PaedoHunt 10 years old]] at the time. The soldier forcibly adopts Ringo and continues to rape him all throughout his childhood, and when Ringo shows signs of wanting to escape his abusive guardian's grasp, the soldier threatens Ringo by saying he'll cut his mother and sister into pieces and [[FedToPigs feed them to pigs]].

** During the Ishval flashbacks we see that many of the Amestrian soldiers, including [[ColonelBadass Roy Mustang]], [[FriendlySniper Riza Hawkeye]], [[OverProtectiveDad Maes Hughes]], [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Basque Grand]] and even ''[[GentleGiant Major Armstrong]]'' acted like this during the genocide, running the full range of Types 1, 2, 3, and 4. Unlike Kimblee, they're all haunted by their actions and deeply regret them. In the first anime, [[SerialKiller Barry the Chopper]] argues that [[HumansAreBastards people really do want to kill each other]], but won't do it without permission from the government; hence why people join the army in the first place. Manga!Kimblee makes a similar speech, in which he questions the motivations of Roy and his friends, suggesting that if they were only willing to kill a few people, but not thousands, they shouldn't have joined the army in the first place.

# '''The Unwilling Conscript:''' Your regular neighborhood boy who has been [[SlaveMook conscripted into the army]], has absolutely no interest in war, hates it all, and has only his own personal survival at stake. Often terrorized and brutalized by his own officers and noncoms. [[DangerousDeserter Extremely likely to desert]] and/or [[{{Turncoat}} sell their own side out]].

This is TruthInTelevision. Every war, ever, has examples of this show up on ''all'' sides. Some have more, some have less, but ''no side has none''. The amount varies widely depending on a whole range of factors, with the most important one usually being whether such behavior is [[EveryoneHasStandards shunned]], [[BystanderSyndrome ignored]], officially condemned, but with a "wink wink, nod nod", or [[ArmiesAreEvil outright encouraged]] by military higher-ups and politicians (with countless examples of all four options). Scientifically tested [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16239_5-psychological-experiments-that-prove-humanity-doomed.html here, especially the second page]]. Also, relatedly, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment this article]].

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Alexei Milchalov, leader of the Rusich Group in the [[UsefulNotes/RussiansWithRustingRockets Russian army]] is infamous on the Russian internet for this behavior, most exemplified in the video of him [[KickTheDog brutally torturing, beheading, and eating a puppy]], then bragging on social media about it. A self-proclaimed Nazi sadist who joined the Russian army [[https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-neo-nazis-fighting-ukraine/31871760.html for "the excitement of the hunt.]]
[[/folder]]