No One Gets Left Behind: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
{{quote|[[Arc Words|Ohana.]] Ohana means family. Family means [[Heartwarming Moments|no one gets left behind or forgotten.]]|'''Stitch''', ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]''}}
|'''Stitch''', ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]''}}
 
{{quote|There are three things to remember about being a starship [[The Captain|captain]]: keep your shirt tucked in, [[Going Down with the Ship|go down with the ship]], and never abandon [[The Men First|a member of your crew]].|'''Captain Janeway''', ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''}}
|'''Captain Janeway''', ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''}}
 
Two characters are escaping from something. One of them falls down, breaks a leg and says "Leave me, [[I Will Only Slow You Down]]". The other one says, "[[More Hero Than Thou|Never]]!" and takes his wounded friend with him. Possibly even requiring, as soon as they reach some degree of safety, that [[Greater Need Than Mine|the wounded character gets evacuated first]].
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When they must [[Bring News Back]], the characters who stay behind often do it to buy the others time to get away. Those who must go on may find it [[Dirty Business|hard to flee]] while [[More Hero Than Thou|others fight]], but generally their sense of duty is up to it.
 
In many ways this is [[Truth in Television]], although without the dramatic clichés. Many armed forces units, especially the U.S. Navy SEALs and U.S. Army Rangers, pride themselves on never abandoning a wounded or dead soldier. Others, like the SAS, make a rule to leave wounded men for [[The Medic|The Medics]]s.
 
See also [[Honor Before Reason]], which this is usually a subtrope of.
 
Has nothing to do with [[George W. Bush|No Child Left Behind.]]
 
{{examples}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', people do extreme things to take their comrades off the field with them. Ling carries his wounded servant Ran Fan out of a battle, and has a fight while carrying her - allowing a pretty heinous villain to mock him relentlessly. Roy cauterizes (his own as well as) Havoc's wounds to help Havoc get safely out of the battle and to enable himself to go and rescue Al and Hawkeye.
** This is lampshaded later on, when Roy tells two of his men to leave him behind if he gets hurt. They instantly agree. Surprised by their response, tells them that the ''correct'' answer is for them to reply "Never! I'd follow you to the depths of hell!" One of the men responds, "Screw that. I've got a family!" While the other says it's stupid to "commit double suicide like that." Roy answers with a knowing smile.
* Averted like ''hell'' in every staircase sequence in ''[[Saint Seiya]]'' -- if—if two or more of Athena's Saints arrive at the battleground with a new opponent, one of them will ''insist'' on [[The Rest Shall Pass|staying behind to fight, just so the other can press onwards]] to save the [[Barrier Maiden|goddess]]. And then, if the first Saint's [[Battle Aura|Cosmo]] fades, the other(s) will stop, look back and think about how their friend has just possibly died, and then continue their climb instead of going back to help. Then again, the Saints' utmost priority is to [[Always Save the Girl|protect Athena]], even at the cost of their own lives, so they earnestly believe that continuing the mission is far more important -- evenimportant—even if they have to leave ''everybody'' behind.
* ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'', so much - Kurogane {{spoiler|''cuts off his own arm'' to keep Fai from being left behind in the closing world of Celes}}.
* This gets averted in the first ''[[Ranma ½]]'' movie, ''Big Trouble in Nekonron'', when Ranma's party [[Dwindling Party|fragments a little bit more]] in every miniboss encounter, as members will [[The Rest Shall Pass|stay behind to hold off their own tailor-made opponents]].
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* Lampshaded and Played with in ''[[Vandread]]''. Dita tries pulling one of these when Gascogne gets stuck. Gasconge is more [[Genre Savvy]].
{{quote|Gasconge: "This isn't a third rate soap opera! You go and you come back with help and get me!"}}
 
 
== Comic Books ==
* During the Marvel Comics run of ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' there was a particularly tragic example where Dusty flashes back to meeting a fellow Joe's family and promising to keep an eye on him. He ends up carrying his friend's dead body for miles through a desert because "he promised."
 
 
== Film ==
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* In ''[[Forrest Gump]]'', 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.
** Ironically, the one soldier that Forrest failed to save the life of was the one he originally went back to help. He kept stumbling on other wounded comrades and brought every one of them back because he felt he "couldn't just leave them there, frightened and hurt."
* Used and [[Lampshade|Lampshaded]]d in the aforementioned ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]''. 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.
** The villain version of this trope is used as well. A German sniper purposely shoots and incapacitates an American soldier, hoping that it will draw out other soldiers into the open in an attempt to help the downed man.
*** A [[Truth in Television]], this is a real sniper tactic.
*** ''[[The Unit]]'' has a variation where {{spoiler|the sniper kills a Unit operator and then ties a wire to the operator's hand to simulate movement, thus making the survivor and rescuers think that he's alive; it's only when the rescuers take out the sniper that they find that all the tension and emphasis on rescuing the "wounded" operator were for nothing}}.
* Subversion: In ''[[Canadian Bacon]]'', the [[The Spartan Way|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." [[You Have Failed Me...|Boom]].
* This is basically the plot of ''[[Black Hawk Down]]'', based on the Battle of Mogadishu.
** Heavily, ''heavily'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the book as [[Honor Before Reason]], where in the After Action Report, the general in charge of the mission admitted that taking the time to make sure all the soldiers or their bodies were out of the battlefield exponentially increased the number of casualties (because they had to stay in combat longer). He even outright admits that it wasn't for some sort of honorable reason or heroic mandate, but because he didn't want to have a PR disaster from American bodies being dragged through the streets, as had happened before (though, that was also because he didn't want to dishonor any soldiers whose bodies would be dragged like that, so...).
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* The firefighters in ''[[Backdraft]]'' have this as part of their code of honor. "You go, we go."
* In ''[[Aliens]]'', after the Colonial Marines learn that some of the ones left behind in the escape are still alive, Vasquez says "Then we go back in there and get them. We don't leave our people behind." They end up not trying to do so after Corporal Hicks points out "You can't help them! You can't. Right now they're being cocooned just like the others."
 
 
== Literature ==
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* Featured prominently in [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Starship Troopers]]'', and realistically gets a lot of characters killed, as observed - and justified - by the characters. "Men are not potatoes."
** Indeed, one of Rico's instructors at OCS claims that it's "mathematically provable" that they should invade an enemy planet in full force to recover one lost infantryman. According to Heinlein, soldiers cannot fully commit themselves to the service of their society if they don't know that the society is equally committed to them. Said math is not shown, of course, so we have to take his [[Author Avatar]]'s word for it.
* Subverted in the ''[[StarcraftStarCraft]]'' novel ''Speed of Darkness'', where the main character intentionally shoots a dying (flamethrower-armed) Firebat, forcing the enemy to stay back. Though some of his squadmates give him a hard time for it, the vets acknowledge it as necessary, even effective.
** In fact, the Lieutenant of the main's group points out that their standard ammunition is designed to cripple, not kill, saying that "if you maim an enemy on the field it takes four of his friends to haul him back from the battle and even more of his friends to patch him up and care for him. Kill an enemy and you decrease the force against you by one. Maim an enemy and you decrease the force against you by ten." Pity the [[Hive Mind|hive-minded]] Zerg never try to recover the wounded.
*** Or that the super advanced Protoss are hardcore and will fight to the bitter end. (And if they get crippled, they will become Dragoons and Stalkers so that their crippled BODIES can fight to the bitter end.)
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** When Domor is wounded and blinded in ''First & Only'', although his wounds will prove fatal without adequate medical attention, Gaunt tells him he's coming if he has to carry him himself.
** In ''Traitor General'', inability to bring Feygor with them because of his illness strikes all the Ghosts very bitterly.
** In ''His Last Command'', when Maggs is thrown [[Cool Gate|through a Chaos warp gate]], Mkoll cites this and jumps after him. Although the scene is both [[Evil Is Deathly Cold|bitterly cold]] and [[Alien Geometries|impossible]], and breaks down Maggs, he gets them both to another gate and out -- aliveout—alive, although covered with frost.
*** That's it? That's all you say about Mkoll's [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|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!
* In William King's ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' novel ''[[Space Wolf]]'', when Ragnar and other Marines were sent to [[Bring News Back|bring news]] of a nest of Chaos Space Marines, one of them is wounded. Ragnar (who had just realized that he does not, and should not, want [[Revenge]] on the wounded man) orders the others on while he tends the wounded. When they are attacked again and he gains more injuries, Ragnar finally carries him to safety.
* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s [[Warhammer 4000040,000]] [[Ultramarines (novel)|Ultramarines]] novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', Uriel is reluctant to leave behind even hopelessly [[Cold-Blooded Torture|tortured]] victims he could not save; later, Vaanes leaves behind the others of their band in a torture chamber, and Uriel and Pasanius stay to free them. {{spoiler|Later still, the mortally wounded Colonel Leonid has a hard time convincing Uriel to leave him behind, and Uriel finds it [[Dirty Business]] -- but Leonid succeeds, and through a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] buys them more time.}}
* The villain reaction is used in Robert Asprin's ''[[Myth Adventures|M.Y.T.H. Inc. In Action]]''. Guido and Nunzio, two Mob bodyguards, join the Army and are not impressed with the training or equipment. During target practice, Guido puts three crossbow bolts into a dummy's shoulder, and the drill sergeant asks, "If you can shoot that well, why not shoot him in the head?!" Guido, forgetting he's not in the Mob anymore, replies, "ANY idiot can kill somebody, but it takes SKILL to leave 'em in a condition where they can still give information, OR pay protection, OR..." Nunzio tries to avert disaster by explaining that what he MEANT was that wounding an opponent takes three men out of the action, since two have to carry the wounded one.
* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s [[John Carter of Mars]]/Barsoom novels.
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* Subverted in [[Jack Campbell]]'s ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' 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 [[Heroic Sacrifice]].
** However in the rest of the series they try their damnest to save any escape pods and liberate any POW camps. {{spoiler|This attitude leads to them saving an Syndic colony that was left to die. This leads to a Syndic CEO have a [[Heel Face Turn]] because her brother was on that colony and she helps the Fleet get home.}}
** In ''Invicible'', Geary orders Tulev to sweep the human wreckage from space -- allspace—all the ships' parts, and above all, all the human bodies. Tulev quotes the trope name, though the motive here is to avoid letting the aliens discover anything about them.
* In the ''[[X Wing Series]]'' novel ''Iron Fist'', {{spoiler|Phanan}} is shot down over an Imperial-held planet. Face followed even though he was squadron leader at the time, telling the others to regroup without him. He found {{spoiler|Phanan}} badly wounded and tried to take him to the nearest settlement, but it was pretty obvious that they wouldn't make it. Face was about to call the Imperial forces out looking for them, because even though they'd be imprisoned by their enemies this would mean medical treatment, but {{spoiler|Phanan}} talked him out of it before dying. Then Face went back to his starfighter, destroyed his friend's body, and returned to the Wraiths guilt-ridden. Wraiths and Rogues in general try very hard to avoid their teammates [[Dying Alone]].
* In [[Andre Norton]] and A.C. Crispin's ''[[Witch World]]'' novel ''Gryphon's Eyrie'', Joisan stands over her fallen husband to keep him from [[Evil Is Deathly Cold|shadow creatures]], but when she, being pregnant, realizes that the creatures are after her baby, she is afraid that it will mean she must leave him.
* In [[Andre Norton]]'s [[Science Fiction]] 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 ''[[Android At Arms]]'', this leads to the protagonist and some of his companions searching for an untrustworthy fellow traveller until they find his body.
* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth|Unfinished Talesof Numenor and Middleearth]]'' includes the story of how Theoden's son had died, just before Gandalf and company's meeting with Theoden in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. 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.
* In Nick Kyme's [[Warhammer 4000040,000]] novel ''[[Salamanders|Salamander]]'', after Tsu'gan's [[Pride]] ensured his captain's death, Tsu'gan refuses to let anyone near his body
{{quote|''maintaining a cordon of protection that no one could breach and live.''}}
** After the fight, a comrade reassures him that his battle-brother will live -- havinglive—having assumed he was protecting the still living Dak'ir.
* Subverted in one of Mack Reynolds' ''Section G.'' [[In Space|spy stories]]. Section G's top operative, Ronny Bronston, takes a new agent on a training mission to an enemy planet. Ronny is wounded and tells the newbie to kill him so the enemy won't capture him. The rookie instead helps Ronny to their escape vehicle. The subversion comes because Ronny wasn't ''that'' badly wounded; it was an impromptu [[Secret Test]], and by not being ruthless enough to kill his comrade, the new guy ''failed'' and gets washed out of field agent training. Ronny's boss points out that the rookie was trying to save Ronny's life. Ronny replies flatly that saving his life wasn't the mission.
* In C.S. Goto's ''[[Blood Ravens]]'' trilogy, having discovered reason to believe {{spoiler|Rhamah}} was still alive, the Blood Ravens engage in a deeply risky maneuver in warp, as the only way to retrieve him.
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* Subverted in the [[Dale Brown]] 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.
* [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s [[Vorkosigan Saga]] novel ''Diplomatic Immunity''. Admiral Vorpatril has this attitude, which was one of the factors leading to the escalation of the diplomatic incident that Miles has to sort out, after having been left behind himself by Miles' father when Vorpatril was a junior officer during the failed Escobar invasion.
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'' has the two dogs, Laddie and Gaspode, set fire to the Odium to destroy the film-creature. When Gaspode's leg goes, Laddie picks him up and carries him, despite Gaspode's [[More Hero Than Thou|protestionsprotestations]] that there's no time, and he's just going to get them ''both'' killed.
* Subverted in ''[[Night]]''. During the march from Birkenau to Auschwitz, anyone who moves too slowly is shot. Rabbi Eliahou can no longer manage to run, and loses his son in the crowd, but is determined to find him. Eliezer declines to tell him that said son abandoned him after seeing him limping, and prays to God for the spiritual strength never to abandon his own father. {{spoiler|He doesn't get it, and is ultimately too cowardly to help his dying father.}}
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "The Devil in Iron", Octavia starts to explain not leaving Conan as this, and then switches to she had nowhere to go.
* In [[Jasper Fforde]]'s ''[[Thursday Next|The Eyre Affair]]'', Thursday went back to get the wounded against orders. If the press hadn't gotten wind of it, she would have been courtmartialed.
* The [[Left Behind]] book series averts this trope with the Rapture of faithful Christians at the beginning of the series. However, those who are left behind to face the Tribulation and become Christians do get supernatural help from God. Also, by the end of the seven-year Tribulation period, the raptured Christians come back with Jesus Christ in time for the [[Curb Stomp Battle]] of Him versus Nicolae Carpathia and the Global Community army.
* ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Goblet of Fire (novel)|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]''. Harry brings Cedric's body back to his father after he's killed by Wormtail.
* In the Loic Henry's [[Military Science Fiction]] book ''Loar'', this his how [[City of Spies|planet Bihan]] keeps or buys the loyalty of its spies: If one spy's cover is blown, they'll order as many spies as necessary to blow their own cover and escape with the first spy (they'll still have a few dozen spies left in the place afterwards anyway).
 
 
== Live Action TV ==
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{{quote|'''Mal''': Zoe, the ship is yours. If I'm not back in one hour, you take this ship and you come and you rescue me!}}
** Also, in the episode "Safe", when Simon asks Mal why he went back for him and River,
{{quote|'''Mal''': [[True Companions|"You're on my crew."]]<br />
'''Simon''': "Yeah, but you don't even like me."<br />
'''Mal''': "You're '''on my crew'''. Why are we still talking about this?" }}
* Subverted in ''[[The Adventures of Lano and Woodley]]''. Col and Frank are fleeing their psychotic ex-boss who is trying to kill them. Frank trips, and this exchange ensues:
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* In season 3 of ''[[Lost]]'', Kate insists on going back to the Barracks for Jack after escaping the Others with his help. In something of a [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]], her efforts seemingly destroy Jack's opportunity to leave the island.
** Then in season 5, Robert says this to Jin when going into the smoke monster's lair after Montand. This does not turn out well, either.
* In an episode of the ''[[MASH|M* A* S*H (television)|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.
* Adam Savage has joked about ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]'' having a "No Crash Test Dummy Left Behind" code at least twice. Of course, since the original Buster was theoretically a loaner ....
* Parodied in the ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode "The Puerto Rican Day", where a parade is obstructing the traffic, and Elaine tries to go through underneath a viewing stand, leading a group of people. An elderly priest can't keep up:
{{quote|'''Elaine:''' Come on, father, you can make it.
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** In "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S6/E01 The Dominators|The Dominators]]", Jamie opts for this when Cully says [[I Will Only Slow You Down]] to Jamie after the Quark shots him.
 
== Tabletop RPGGames ==
 
* Thoroughly averted, and possibly subverted, in ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]''. The Tau and Eldar are about the only ones who ever try, and the Eldar consider recovering the waystones of the dead good enough consolation for being unable to save the bodies of the living (the fact that Eldar wear them to prevent their souls [[Fate Worse Than Death|from being devoured]] by [[Cosmic Horror|evil Chaos God of lust]] may also have something to it).
== Tabletop RPG ==
* Thoroughly averted, and possibly subverted, in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]''. The Tau and Eldar are about the only ones who ever try, and the Eldar consider recovering the waystones of the dead good enough consolation for being unable to save the bodies of the living (the fact that Eldar wear them to prevent their souls [[Fate Worse Than Death|from being devoured]] by [[Cosmic Horror|evil Chaos God of lust]] may also have something to it).
** Similarly, although the Marines consider it the highest honour to die in battle, they'll fight hard to recover the two progenoid glands from the still-cooling bodies of their battle brothers, as they are necessary to convert new Space Marines. (The way the Chaos forces can use them lends a certain amount of urgency to this.)
*** The Grey Knights, however, will fight as hard as possible to recover their comrades' bodies, not just the glands, so they can lay them to rest on Titan.
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** The Tyranids do this too, in a sense. When they gather up the biological material from a planet they've conquered, they make sure to get '''all''' of it, which includes every single 'Nid that got killed in the attack.
*** Actually they also collect the biomass from most of the survivors too. The greater part of their assault troops are creatures that have no digestive system: they are MEANT to die, should they survive the invasion, and they'll be reprocessed into biomass for later use.
* Thoroughly justified in ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'' by [[Death Is Cheap|resurrection magic]].
 
 
== Video Games ==
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* Played straight with ''[[Tales of Destiny]]'', in a pretty memorable scene. After fighting Mary's brainwashed ex-husband, mooks can be heard getting closer; Stahn and co. have to run away, but Mary wants to stay with her semi-dead man. Rutee then tells Mary that that's out of question, because no one gets left behind... including her husband. Rutee then piggybacks him.
* Subverted in ''[[Fire Emblem]]''. During the last part of the prologue, Marth is told by his advisor that he has to sacrifice one of his soldiers as a decoy to allow him to escape. Marth insists that everyone sticks together, but if you decide not to send a unit to the southern fort, you'll soon be overrun by an army of Knights who are capable of killing any and all of your party members with one hit (two or three, in [[Crutch Character|Jeigan's]] case). Leaving a unit behind is the only way you can proceed to the end of the chapter, as the second gate won't open unless you do.
* Played straight in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'': while fleeing from Bevelle, the party is beset by Seymour. Kimahri urges them to run on ahead while he holds Seymour back, and they do --rightdo—right up to the moment when they decide it's not right, and run right back to help him.
* Depending on the player, ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]''. With the [[Floating Continent]] crumbling away from beneath their feet, and Shadow holding Kefka back with the Three Statues, the party must make it to the airship and [[Timed Mission|escape before it's too late]]. Typically, [[Guide Dang It|one would jump onto the airship at the first opportunity]], but by waiting until the last possible second, Shadow will catch up and join the party.
** The game helpfully gives a countdown so the rest of the party knows when "the last possible second" is, and the options given when you reach the jump point not-so-subtly implies that you ought to wait for Shadow.
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* [[Uncharted]] has a particularly cool example: escaping an ancient temple into a rainy evening only to find out that Elena's cameraman Jeff has been shot and that they're surrounded, Nathan Drake grabs him and carries him through the streets, covered by Elena and Chloe. {{spoiler|Then you get to a building, where you take a moment to sit Jeff down, only for Lazarevich to come in and perform his ultimate [[Kick the Dog]] moment - executing Jeff on the spot.}}
* In the final playable sequence of [[Bastion]], the Kid can either {{spoiler|abandon the wounded Zulf and continue fighting the Ura, or drop his weapons and carry Zulf to safety.}} If you choose the latter, the Ura will persist in attacking you... {{spoiler|but the Kid keeps going, and they respect his determination so much that an Ura soldier who takes another potshot at the Kid ends up skewered by his own commander.}}
 
 
== Web Comics ==
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** Justified in that retrieving {{spoiler|Roy's}} body makes it significantly easier to resurrect him. Plus Belkar at the time couldn't be more than a set distance away from it.
* ''[[Spacetrawler]]'': Captain Nogg has no qualms about abandoning a crew member if that's what it takes to get the rest of his ship away safely. On the other hand, his crew has no qualms about ignoring Nogg when he tells them to abandon their mates.<ref>They ''did'' abandon Dustin, but only because Dustin was a jerk who got captured because of his own stupidity.</ref>
* In ''[[Galactic Maximum]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20170114033226/http://maximumcomic.com/?strip_id=2 taking a wounded man away with you.]
* ''21st Century Fox'', subverted in the Hurricane Liska story, but played straight in the John Walker Bambi arc.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'': [[Super Soldier|Jagerkin]] do NOT leave their own, or those they consider as good as, behind.
* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'', [http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/04-33.html Red realized that something had gotten to her grandmother, but could not leave and abandon her grandmother.]
 
 
== Web Original ==
* Played with in ''[[Open Blue]]'''s [[Backstory]], where [[Four-Star Badass|Executor Altara]] refuses her Empress' offer to allow her and the rest of the [[Praetorian Guard]] to retreat while the latter and the regular army [[You Shall Not Pass|held off]] [[The Horde]] that was [[One Sided Battle|slowly defeating their troops]]. The Empress gets killed, and they end up defeated and having to retreat anyway.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' did this a lot. In [[The Movie]], Sgt. Slaughter explicitly lines it out: "It's time you learned we're a team, Red Dog. We all go home or nobody goes home."
* ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'': "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?
** Later, when Woody and Buzz are making their escape from Sid's house, the rocket strapped to his back keeps Buzz from being able to fit under the fence. Though Buzz says "Go on, I'll catch up," Woody jumps down off of the van (where Andy is) and runs back to help Buzz.
* Parodied in ''[[South Park]]'', "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000." Cartman and his cellmate have escaped from prison. As they flee the guards, the cellmate is injured, and says to go on without him. Cartman says "okay" and begins to go. The cellmate indignantly points out that Cartman was supposed to say that he couldn't leave his friend behind.
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'''Ozzy''': NO! SAVE ME! SAVE ME RIGHT NOW! }}
* Parodied in British comedy show ''[[Monkey Dust]]'' in "They All Come Home", a parody of ''[[Black Hawk Down]]''.
* The Thunder Lizards of ''[[Eek! theThe Cat]]'' grudgingly remembered this rule when an obnoxious parody of [[Mr. T]] got dragged away by a carnivorous plant. Then one said, "But we don't have to hurry," and they smiled and moseyed.
* Parodied in ''[[Futurama]]'':
{{quote|'''Zoidberg''': Go on without me!
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* ''[[Star Trek: The Animated Series]]'' 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."
* Notably in one episode of ''[[The Smurfs]]'', Lazy and a bunch of other Smurfs get trapped in a volcano and work to rebuild a windmill into a helicopter so they could escape. Lazy feels entirely at fault for letting the Smurfs down and trapping them in the volcano, but Smurfette refuses to let him stay behind to perish.
 
 
== Real Life ==
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* The Spartans last stand at Thermopylae concluded its last few moments with a handful of soldiers clustered round the body of their dead commander, Leonidus, before an arrow storm finally finished them off.
* The Battle of Mogadishu ([[Black Hawk Down]]) is a famous example. It is also a famous example of when this policy can result in a massive amount of casualties.
** Massive? More like worth it. It may sound macabre to most, but to a fighting man of the US Army Infantry knowing that not even your corpse will be left behind, but in fact fought for to be returned to your family is a serious morale booster. We do not leave anyone, not even our dead.<ref> That being said, the US military DID leave men behind during this battle, but only out of absolutely necessity</ref>.
*** Heinlein's Starship Troopers emphasises this on more than one occassion - that for one to be truly committed to the society, they must also know that the society is committed to them. And that it's "poor arithmatic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature", finishing off with "when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price". Understand that this happens in most other professional militaries, for more than one reason.
*** There's also the thing about avoiding letting technology like miniguns, night vision equipment, communications gear and mission data fall into enemy hands at the crash sites... This might not be of ''primary''' concern, but it adds to the need to secure these sites as fast as possible.
* The 1953 American attempt to summit K2, the second highest mountain and arguably the most difficult in the world, was frustrated by weather and mountain sickness. The eight man team attempted to carry one of their number off the mountain, a nearly impossible feat at that altitude. Then a near disastrous accident left everybody shaken and/or injured. The team decided to camp to recover and consider their options leaving their injured companion, Art Gilkey, secured in his litter to the mountain face but when they came to fetch him he had been swept away, litter and all, by an avalanch he might well have deliberately called down upon himself in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save his comrades.
* Hideaki Akaiwa was at work on March 11th11, 2011 when the 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami hit his city of Ishinomaki, Japan. His wife of twenty years was trapped in their home under the waves, and rescue workers could not get to her. Rather than just give in to fate, Hideaki somehow managed to get a SCUBA kit and dove into the raging waters of the tsunami to rescue her. Navigating through the waters and dodging numerous obstacles including cars, downed power lines and ''houses'' getting swept away in the current, he managed to find his home and his wife. She was alive, and thanks to Hideaki was rescued. This alone is impressive, but when his mother was declared missing, he did it ''again'' and saved her. And for the duration of the disaster, he went out on his bicycle alone with a folding knife, a few bottles of water, his SCUBA gear and gave help wherever he could. He was named [[Badass of the Week]] for that.
* Medal of Honor recipient Roy P. Benavidez rescued thirteen men from a ''battalion'' of North Vietnamese soldiers, including running over to a downed Huey helicopter and physically carrying the crew to another helicopter, and directing airstrikes while his eyes were ''blinded with the blood pouring into them.'' Did I mention he was only carrying a knife? He received thirty-seven wounds from bullets, bayonets and grenade blasts in the process, his guts were hanging out, and was placed in a body bag after the battle, and had the strength to spit in the doctor's face when declared a goner. '''He lived.''' Here is a condensed summary of the story: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lHkrqlT62o video], and here is the Medal of Honor [[wikipedia:Roy Benavidez#Medal of Honor citation|citation]].
* During the Winter War and Continuation War, the Finnish army made a point of this. Turns out it worked really well to scare your opponents. The Finns usually collected their dead during the night. Thus when morning came and the Russians surveyed the battlefield all they found were their own dead soldiers. Not knowing whether you actually killed any of your enemies plays merry hell on ther morale.
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[[Category:No One Gets Left Behind]]