Old Soldier: Difference between revisions

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The [['''Old Soldier]]''' is the grizzled veteran who has been through and seen everything in war. He would more than qualify for being a [[Shell Shocked Senior]], both in age and experience, but he's still going into battle and odds are that he's the backbone of whatever unit he or (more rarely) she is in. This character type is almost never an officer or a commander, and is instead usually a [[Sergeant Rock]]. Generally you can expect them to be tough, to have a few [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|badass scars]], and to be eternally pissed off at (or at least exasperated by) the younger troops around him. Despite that, he may still turn out to be one of the best sources of mentoring or seasoning a young soldier can get.

Expect the [[Officer and a Gentleman]] to rely on him quite a bit in running the unit, ala [[Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough]]. [[Ensign Newbie]], on the other hand, will rarely know to do this or will actively tick off the [['''Old Soldier]]''' in attempting to control a unit, a mistake he usually pays for. Despite the first page quote, old soldiers have about a 50-50 chance of dying in a work of fiction, but usually not until rather late in the story, generally in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] of some kind or in a suitably impressive way. If this character dies early in a story, odds are you're dealing with a story on the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism|cynical end of the scale]], and that it's [[Anyone Can Die|going to have a high Mortality rate]].