History Main / VeteranInstructor

** Clan ''sibko'' instructors subvert this; rather than being decorated veterans sent to educate the next generation, they consist of the ones who have been removed from frontline combat thanks to age, poor performance or political disgrace. The majority of them are ''very'' bitter about this and are more than willing to take out their anger on the teenage cadets they train, which is probably one of the reasons (along with all training being done with live weapons) why Clan training programs [[TheSpartanWay have a 30% attrition rate]].

* In ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', Clan sibko instructors subvert this; rather than being decorated veterans sent to educate the next generation, they have been removed from active duty thanks to age, poor performance or political disgrace. The majority of them are ''very'' bitter about this and are more than willing to take out their anger on the teenaged cadets they train; which is probably one of the reasons (along with all training being done with live weapons) why Clan training programs [[TheSpartanWay have a 90% attrition rate]].

* In the manga version of ''Manga/SailorMoon'', Sailor Venus takes this role early on, using the Sailor V Game to pass on his experience to the other Sailor Senshi until she has to enter the battle openly. It's implied she continues off-page even after that.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' revolves around student life at the prestigious Thors Military Academy, and several of the faculty are military veterans, most notably Major Neithardt, Professor Beatrix, and Principal Vandyck. In ''Cold Steel III'', the protagonist Rean Schwarzer becomes this, as he is now an instructor at the Thors branch campus, and he has over a year of solid military service under his belt as the [[RedBaron Ashen Chevalier]] fighting in the Erebonian Civil War, defeating multiple incursions by the Republic of Calvard at the Erebonian border, and participating in the invasion of North Ambria. The branch campus also boasts Major Michael Irving from the Railway Military Police in its instructing staff and former General Aurelia Le Guin as the principal.

In a way, a commissioned counterpart to DrillSergeantNasty, in that he can put his students through a TrainingFromHell just as easily. On the other hand, he is usually [[OfficerAndAGentleman much more gentlemanly about it]]. Notably, they will be the first to tell the fresh faced recruits something like, "First thing, WarIsHell, and if you want the best chance to survive it, you will ''listen'' to those who know."

* ComicBook/SgtRock has pulled training duty stateside, but is so committed to Easy Company that he insists on rejoining them on his furloughs.

* ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'' has the protagonist team trained by legendary (wheelchair bound) dodgeball player Patches O'Houlihan. Parodied to hell and gone as Patches is [[BunnyEarsLawyer ''extremely'' eccentric]] and puts the protagonists through TrainingFromHell (including dodging wrenches, in a scene massively [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil spoiled by the trailer]]), and ultimately [[MentorOccupationalHazard dies before]] the BigGame.

* In ''Film/TheMartian'', [[spoiler:this is Mark's new job after he rescued from Mars, as the foremost expert in long term survival techniques for astronaut candidates]].

* Creator/TerryPratchett has Sergeant Jackrum of the Borogravian army in ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'', who's been in the army so long that retirement papers have been in hot pursuit for years now, but has never advanced any further in rank. It's implied Jackrum's responsible for recruiting and training most of the high ranking officers in the army.
* Commissar Literature/CiaphasCain ('''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM''') becomes a Commissariat instructor in an Schola Progenium once he's reached his "retirement". The GodEmperor having a sick sense of humor, being retired does not make him any less likely to be eaten, shot, or otherwise attacked than when he was still active.

** Even basic training instructors are veterans, as indicated by them having the rank to do so (being career soldiers with ''at least'' one combat drop being a prerequisite to rising above corporal in the MI), the diffences with their Officer Candidate School counterparts being they're all in active service, are for the most part noncoms, and, in the case of the few officers, are relatively lower-ranked. They're still good at their job, to the point that when [[SergeantRock Zim]] is deployed for active combat he had to be referred by his rank until ''after'' the action or the reader would have known everything would go well.

* At the end of one season of ''Series/{{Bones}}'', Booth (a former Army Ranger sharpshooter) was reactivated and went to Afganistan to train snipers.

* In the finale of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', Janeway volunteers as a guest lecturer on the Borg for Barclay's class, being one of very few people who have extensive experience with them.

* In ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', Clan sibko instructors subvert this; rather than being decorated veterans sent to educate the next generation they have been removed from active duty thanks to age, poor performance or political disgrace. The majority of them are ''very'' bitter about this and are more than willing to take out their anger on the teenaged cadets they train; which is probably one of the the reasons (along with all training being done with live weapons) why Clan training programs [[TheSpartanWay have a 90% attrition rate]].

* TruthInTelevision. During WWII, the Allies would pull their best aces out of combat and send them back to train new pilots. This served two purposes: it kept famous aces from being killed in combat, thus avoiding the blow to morale that it would cause, and it allowed new trainees to benefit from the aces' vastly greater experience, making them better pilots. It must have been a great incentive for pilots to excel, aka "Make Ace, get excused from combat sooner." Notably, Japan did ''not'' bring their aces out of combat (the idea being that they should stay where they could do the most damage against the enemy), and they were almost all killed eventually (the lone survivor was only pulled from the lines and sent to train new pilots due a stress-caused error causing him to get a bullet in the eye) -- and the quality of Japanese pilots took a sharp downturn near the end of the war. This is also why the best known Axis aces had higher kill counts than their Allied counterparts.
** They did it with the snipers too. For example, the most famous Soviet sniper, Vasily Zaitsev, actually has relatively modest kill count, even compared to the other Soviet snipers, because he was pulled from the action quite early after he was made an example, as the brass realized that letting him to be killed would be a blow to the morale. So he was transferred from the frontlines and got posted as an instructor in the sniper school.

** This is especially true of specialist, highly skill-based support vocations such as the medics, signallers and combat engineers. The latter in particular can have a School reconstituted as an Engineer formation with very little effort.

* In a lot of work situations this is standard for new hires. Rather than just hand someone manuals and expect them to figure it all out on their own, they'll assign someone experienced to teach them and answer any questions.

* The GaidenGame ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'' allows you to play as the Adeptus Arbites, an officially-backed riot squad rather than the usual street gangs. Given their access to better equipment, characters who reach a certain level are removed and considered to have become this for game balance reasons.

* ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'' has the protagonist team trained by legendary (wheelchair bound) dodgeball player Patches O'Houlihan. Parodied to hell and gone as Patches is [[BunnyEarsLawyer ''extremely'' eccentric]] and puts the protagonists through TrainingFromHell (including dodging wrenches, in a scene massively [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil spoiled by the trailer]]), and ultimately [[MentorOccupationalHazard dies before]] TheBigGame.

* ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'' has the protagonist team trained by legendary (wheelchair bound) dodgeball player Patches O'Houlihan.

* Jack Bartlett from ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'' is Type 1: because of his actions during the Belkan War, his superiors mistrust him without any proof, so he is stuck teaching "nuggets" on Sand Island. Gets to shine late in the game when [[spoiler:he escapes a squadron of fighters with precious cargo on board a ''transport plane'' (though, to be fair, you assist him) and then pulls off an AirstrikeImpossible like your own team ''on his own'']].
** Also, an inversion in ''VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar'': legendary ace Dietrich Kellermann, who became an instructor after retirement, is sent back to the frontlines during the Belkan War to boost the Belkans' morale.

* Lampshaded in the [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''VideoGame/{{Minesweeper}} TheMovie'', as the quote above shows.

* Senior Chief Randall in ''Film/TheGuardian'' was a veteran Coast Guard rescue swimmer who took a teaching assignment at the training center. [[TruthInTelevision The movie was based on a true story.]]

* Commissar CiaphasCain ('''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM''') becomes a Commissariat instructor in an Schola Progenium once he's reached his "retirement". The GodEmperor having a sick sense of humor, being retired does not make him any less likely to be eaten, shot, or otherwise attacked than when he was still active.

* Creator/TerryPratchett has Sergeant Jackrum of the Borogravian army in ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'', who's been in the army so long that retirement papers have been in hot pursuit for years now, but has never advanced any further in rank. It's implied Jackrum's responsible for recruiting and training most of the high ranking officers in the army.

* Master Miller of ''Franchise/MetalGear'' has served with Big Boss back when he was running the MSF, then trained [=SEALs=] and other mercenary outfits.

* Alastor Moody from ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' is brought from retirement by [[BigGood Dumbledore]] to teach Hogwards' students the ways of wizards' warfare for the inevitable impending struggle against [[BigBad Voldemort]]. He makes a stunning impression on the youths with his rough demeanor, [[CruelAndUnusualPunishment vindictive punishment of evil deeds]], epic TrainingFromHell and demonstrations of [[WarIsHell what wizards' ways of causing harm are like]]. [[spoiler:It turns out that he's actually an imposter...but everything seen of the real Alastor Moody indicates that he would've taught the students in largely the same way.]]

* After the war ends in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', Jake works training a squadron of morphers for the US military. He reamrks on how bizarre it is that he's instructing soldiers five to ten years older than he is, but it's justified since Jake and his friends are probably the most experienced morphers in existence (the Andalites, who invented the tech, tended to use it very sparingly).

* After the war ends in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', Jake works training a squadron of morphers for the US military.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Marine Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp becomes this in the TimeSkip, retiring from his Marine duties while staying as an instructor to teach young Marines. Even before the time skip he manages to turn two wimps Coby and Helmeppo into hardened Marine officers.

* ''OnePiece'': Marine Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp becomes this in the TimeSkip, retiring from his Marine duties while staying as an instructor to teach young Marines. Even before the time skip he manages to turn two wimps Coby and Helmeppo into hardened Marine officers.

* Lampshaded in the [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''{{Minesweeper}} TheMovie'', as the quote above shows.

* In ''Film/TheMartian'', [[spoiler:this is Mark's new job after he rescued from Mars, as the foremost expert in long term survival techniques for astronauts]].

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', one SpaceMarines special character is Ultramarines scout sergeant Tellion, who stayed a sergeant to teach new recruits, and has even been loaned out to the Ultramarines' successor chapters to further distribute his skills. This seems to be a common occurrence among scout sergeants, see below.

* Alastor Moody from ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' is brought from retirement by [[BigGood Dumbledore]] to teach Hogwards' students the ways of wizards' warfare for the inevitable impending struggle against [[BigBad Voldemort]]. He makes a stunning impression on the youths with his rough demeanor, [[CruelAndUnusualPunishment vindictive punishment of evil deeds]], epic TrainingFromHell and demonstrations of [[WarIsHell what wizards' ways of causing harm are like]].

* At the conclusion of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', O'Brien heads back to Earth to become one of these at the Academy. He'd been doing a fair bit of the VeteranInstructor schtick as part of his regular duties during the last two seasons anyway.

* Nanoha Takamachi in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikerS'' is the second type. Notable in that she is already a veteran at the [[ImprobableAge age of 19]] due to having been on the job [[ChildSoldiers from the age of 9]].