Original subtitles

You prance around here like a Busby Berkeley chorus line, and you've got

thing coming to you.

I make you practice marching more than any other squadron so you'll be better

for the Sunday parades, and what happens?

We look worse. You look worse?

Just meet me halfway.

Don't I always meet you more than halfway?

That may be why we never meet at all.

Is it my fault?

Is any of this my fault? I want to be told. I won't punish the man who tells

the truth. I swear.

Oh, yes, you will. I would be thankful to the man who tells me the truth. Why

can you not walk a straight line? Why can you not turn a 90 -degree angle

11 weeks? Why do you not seem to care that we are nine days from the inter

-squadron parade jamboree?

The fuck are you staring at?

How can we finally, finally, I beg you...

Find a way of getting this thing right. I actually know the answer to this. No,

you don't.

Not really. I was looking at the parade manual. It's about breaking us into

smaller groups. You really need to shut up. And the $100 question.

Why is it so hard to restrict the swing of your arms to a maximum 7 -inch

lateral penule mark with a maximum 4 -inch distance from wrist to thigh?

if you please.

7 -inch lateral penule mark, 4 -inch distance wrist to thigh. Thank you,

Yes, sir.

Why is that so hard?

Why is that so hard?

Seven -inch swing, four -inch gap.

Then we look tight.

Then we look fierce.

Then we stand out from all the goddamn free -swinging arms that seem to be the

goddamn fashion these days.

Then we win the goddamn pennant because your goddamn hands ought never move more

than three and a half inches in either direction, north or south, from the

center of your thigh.

but apparently we're all a bunch of mongoloids. He's talking about you,

Clevenger.

Reprobates!

I've been staying up at night.

I've been saying to myself, how are we going to win this thing, boys?

You know how to do it.

I got a friend in the sheet metal shop.

You could make me little pegs of nickel alloy, and I could sink each one of them

into your thigh bones and connect them to your wrists with strands of copper

wire with exactly three and a half inches of play, because apparently we're

a bunch of pansies.

So I'm asking you, somebody tell me, what is it that I am doing wrong?

Somebody, anybody tell me, where have I failed?

No, it's a rhetorical question. Sir?

Soldier? Jesus Christ.

Well, sir, I've actually been thinking about this, and you see, I think it's

quite a simple solution.

What's your name, soldier?

Clevenger, sir. Air Corps cadet Timothy Clyde Clevenger.

So I was thinking, the problem lies in the relationship between the

synchronization of the whole unit and synchronization of the individual line,

you see?

You start small rather than big, you divide the unit into practice groups,

six to ten men, well, it's just human nature to take in information more

concretely in smaller groups.

So, sir... I would suggest your error. Clevenger, stop fucking talking!

This group small enough for you?

I still can't understand it.

What is there to understand?

They hate you.

They hate you before you got here.

They hate you while you're here, and they're going to keep on hating you

you leave.

I'm sorry, buddy.