At Marine Corps boot camp, drill instructor Hartman, played by R. Lee Ermey, is a brute whose task is to make his platoon of young US marines kill-ready. The recruits—sharp-witted Joker (Matthew Modine), rustic Cowboy (Arliss Howard), and doltish Gomer Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio)—are bullied into becoming warriors and soon find themselves in Da Nang as the Tet Offensive swells. The combatants don’t understand why they fight, just that they do. And in a series of brilliantly executed firefights, the grunts take one casualty after another. But in Full Metal Jacket, glory and patriotism are the first to fall.