Sarge

"You just got sarge'd!"

- Sarge

Staff Sergeant "Sarge" is a main character in the machinima series Red vs. Blue. Sarge is the staff sergeant and leader of the Blood Gulch Red Team. He is voiced by Matt Hullum, co-creator of the series, and first appeared at the end of Episode 1. A military man with a Southern United States accent, Sarge exhibits more discipline than the other Reds (and most of the Blues, for that matter), but is also somewhat sociopathic, bloodthirsty, eccentric, and the only Blood Gulch soldier on either team that is actually serious about the war (or training exercise). According to Chapter 17 of Revelation, his prefered nickname is S-dog.

Character overview
Rooster Teeth has noted that they initially modelled Sarge after Full Metal Jacket 's Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but, by the middle of Season 2, the character had evolved into, in the words of voice actor Matt Hullum, "every 1950s in film stereotype character...melted down into one", exhibiting characteristics of a mad scientist, used car salesman, and "grumpy old dad".

Matt Hullum states that he initially modeled Sarge's voice on that of R. Lee Ermey, the actor who portrayed Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, but by Season Three, the character's voice became more gruff and less nasal. The change in voice is such that people will often ask who voiced Sarge in the initial episodes, believing that Hullum himself did not.

Role in Plot
Sarge is portrayed as the gruff and regiment leader of the Red Team. Introduced in the first two episodes, Sarge's disposition (and particularly his relationships with Grif and Simmons) is quickly established in a conversation (which the writers modeled on one that they themselves had) regarding the resemblance of the Warthog to a puma. After naming the jeep and informing Grif and Simmons about the arrival of a rookie, Sarge leaves for Command for orders. After some time, he radios his team from a Pelican to inform them of his return, only to find that they are being attacked by Sheila. He then launches an air strike, disabling Sheila for some time. In the aftermath, he sent Lopez to shoot Grif, whom he blames for the ruined jeep.

During Tex's first attack on Red Base, Sarge and Lopez corner her, knock her out, and take her prisoner. When the Blue Team launched a rescue attempt, Sarge was possessed by Church, the Blues' deceased leader. Under Church's control, he knocked Simmons out and escorted Tex out of the base, only to be shot in the head by the Blue rookie, Caboose. He then hallucinates a meeting with Church in the afterlife, where he laments his inability to torture Grif more. Grif revives Sarge using CPR. Sarge initially thanks Simmons; upon hearing that it was Grif who saved him, he berates Grif at length for attempting to treat a bullet wound to the head with CPR.

Later, Donut returns with a voice card for Lopez. Sarge damages the card while trying to install it, such that Lopez is only able to speak Spanish. Tex later attacks Red Base again, this time with Sheila's assistance. Sarge and Simmons again attempt to fight her, but fail. He then watches proudly as Lopez apparently pursues Tex, believing the act to be a suicide run (in reality, Church had possessed Lopez and was attempting to assist Tex).

In Season 2, Sarge is forced to build two permanent robot bodies for the Blues; he implants a microphone in one and a bomb in the other, as well as a voice command which causes the robot to punch Grif. The bomb, however, leads to both teams being blasted into the distant future during Season 3. Once there, Sarge takes charge of assault on a fortress occupied by O'Malley, the common enemy of both teams. His initial ideas for the assault mostly involved sacrificing several team members to ensure his own safety (the first to be killed in his plans would always be Grif, even if this was unnecessary for the hypothetical plan to succeed), but he finally chose a more stealthy and more succesful sneak attack. During a battle against O'Malley and his Robot Army, Sarge and the Red Team leave the Blues to battle alone, in order to go in search of the source of a distress signal; they end up returning to Blood Gulch.

In Season 5, Sarge and the rest of the Reds return to their base at Blood Gulch, where they reunite with Lopez. From late in Season 2, Sarge had been attempting to retrieve the orders from Red Command that are stored in Lopez's head. Sarge, in an attempt to translate those orders from Spanish, kidnaps Andy, the Blue Team's talking bomb; the orders turn out to be useless. The Reds are then attacked by the Blues, and Sarge radios command reinforcements. When a ship arrives, the pilot (Sister) informs them that she was sent to replace a dead commanding officer. Sarge's undying trust in command causes him to believe that he is in fact dead, and the other Reds bury him.

By Episode 85, he has disappeared from his grave, having fallen into the underground cavern. He mistakes the cavern for Hell; Donut's arrival confirms his suspicion. The two are soon contacted and rescued by Simmons and Grif. Then all of Red Team goes exploring through the cavern until finding the computer that shows the canyon and after learning the Blues took over their base calls Vic for support so they can take it back, but Simmons interupts the call. They come back above ground and go towards Red Base, but instead they go to the Blue Base when the tank goes towards Red Base. Later they help the Blues in the battle against Wyoming. Once they finished dealing with Wyoming, they chased Caboose until Simmons was infected by O'Mally and nearly killed Sarge but Tex saved him. Then Church asks Sarge to disable the ship so Tex cant escape but instead they put Andy the bomb in there and have him denonate the Ship while its leaving. He later builds a mongoose out of old Warthog parts and calls Simmons and Grif over to help him pick a name.

As of Reconstruction Chapter 2, Sarge is the only Red left in Blood Gulch; he vowed not to leave until all the Blues were wiped out (even though the only Blue left is Sister, whom he can't attack because she is a girl), even though his refusal to leave with the rest of his team would be considered going AWOL. It should also be noted that he has repaired Lopez, who now has his entire body.

Later on, the Meta deceives him into thinking that the Blue Team has been reassembled under Washington's command. He appears again in Chapter 8 with Grif and Simmons, attacking Washington and Church on sight in his fanatical attempts to wipe out the Blues once and for all. In Chapter 9, Sarge saves Grif and Simmons from death by firing squad. Sarge couldn't come to terms with the fact that Grif was now the same rank as him, preferring to assume that their real commander was invisible. After an incident where the Meta threw a Warthog at Grif, he agreed to work with Washington after the latter guessed his secure codeword that only Command knew (which turned out to be "codeword") and also after Washington demoted Grif from sargeant to "minor junior private negative first class".

It is revealed in Relocated Part Three that Sarge now understands a bit of Spanish, since he apparently knew that Lopez was giving him an answering machine message and disabled Lopez's lying ability. In previous series, Sarge would just ramble on and assume Lopez was either agreeing with him or complimenting him. In Relocated Part Four, Sarge tests out his new EMP-firing warthog (portrayed as a Gauss Warthog) on some "Holo-Grifs" in the new simulation room built by Lopez. Grif notices errors in a hologram's appearance, commenting that it's "all lightish red". Sarge tells Grif and Donut to stop talking, since the "lightish red" guy was actually Donut, who then collapses from dehydration. Sarge asks Grif what Donut said.

In Recreation, Sarge announces a attack on the Blues. Sarge calls up the new command (the UNSC) for advice, but Command has no files on Blue Team since Sarge deleted them. Simmons reminds Sarge of what happened; Sarge remembers Simmons deleting the Blues, Sarge killing Grif, and Simmons turning into a Mongoose. Sarge later joins Caboose's mission to find Tucker, because if there were more Blues, then Command would re-instate them so that they could keep fighting. Sarge, Grif, and Caboose go on the mission only to land in a desert surrounded by landmines. Sarge and company later meet up with Tucker and congregate inside the Temple. The four have a brief discussion and Sarge and Grif pretend they suspected Church was an AI after Tucker says he knew that. After that, Sarge and the others find Caboose, who wandered off, with a floating robot who is later revealed to be Epsilon-Church. Sarge and Grif later kill an Elite sent into the Temple by C.T. and meet up with Tucker, Caboose and Epsilon-Church.

In Revelation, Sarge and Grif are introduced cooperating well with the Blues, through he voices an opinion that Epsilon-Church may be milking his new status as a diety for the Aliens too much. He also retains some suspicion of Epsilon-Church and his newfound powers, particularly after Epsilon-Church has a flashback of Valhalla. To ensure the Blues are not up to something, he contacts Simmons by having Epsilon-Church boost the Warthog's radio. After a brief conversion with Simmons, Sarge displays, for the first and only time, an impressive display of competence by deducing that not only are Donut and Lopez dead and Simmons held hostage, but as correctly guessed through unintended and obscure clues from Simmons that Washington and the Meta are responsible. He even concludes that Doc is a prisoner as well, though refuses to admit how he knew to Grif. Claiming to have a plan, he and Grif head to Valhalla, with Epsilon covertly following them. In "Upon Further Review", Sarge arrives in Valhalla, seemingly alone. Not respecting Sarge enough to expect a trap, Washington takes the bait and attempts to arrest Sarge alone. After many failed attempts to signal Grif, a Warthog smashs out of the wall and runs over Washington, who survives and tries to shoot the driving Grif. Grif slams the brakes, sending Washington flying and allowing Sarge to steal his shotgun back. As Washington recovers, he finds himself next to some explosive containers, which Sarge aims at and says "Agent Washington, You just got--", before pre-emptively firing. Washington is last seen uttering the classic "Oh son of a" line before being consumed by the blast, leaving Sarge complaining that he messed up his own one liner.

Soon after their confrontation with Washington, Grif and Sarge pulled up to Blue Base, where the Meta was holding Doc and Simmons hostage. The Meta punched Doc into a wall, and Simmons jumped onto the Sarge and Grif's warthog. However, the Meta destroys their warthog, and is about to kill the three Reds before Epsilon-Church appears, giving the Reds an opportunity to flee through the hole in the wall Grif made with the warthog. Once through the hole, the Reds discuss an escape plan, seeing as the warthog was destroyed. Epsilon-Church reappeared, and the Reds saw that the Meta was coming. Immediately, Grif and Sarge attempt to make Epsilon-Church angry by insulting him, trying to get him to activate his laser. As the Meta, and Washington, who survived the explosion, are coming closer, the sight of Washington makes Epsilon-Church angry,then shouts "Washington" in an angry tone and shooting his laser, and blocking off the two Freelancers from them.

Sarge then tells Grif and Simmons to pack up Epsilon-Church, and then they head back to Sandtrap. Later, when Epsilon-Church left to the Freelancer facility with Caboose, Sarge upon hearing where they were headed, decides to follow them so he and the rest of the Reds can put the Blues back in the data base; in the process leaving Tucker alone with the aliens. As Sarge and the rest of the Reds arrive at the facility, they make a plan to pose as Freelancer agents so that F.I.L.S.S. would let them in. This ultimately fails when Grif stated his name was Agent Pluto, leaving Sarge to use his contingency plan, Shotgun to the Face. They walk inside, finding Caboose blocking the door behind him. After some clearly destructive and visible damage appears on the door, Caboose leaves in fear, leaving the Reds alone in front of the door which gets broken down by a newly revived Tex. The Reds run as fast as they can with Sarge providing cover fire, though it does little to slow down Tex. She begins to beat the living crap out of the Reds, most notably Grif; whom she continues to target his groin. Tucker then arrives and assists the Reds by distracting her while Simmons gets ready to shoot her with a Rocket Launcher, though this fails when Caboose drops a crate between them. Tex promptly and effectively beats down the team of the Reds and Tucker. Epsilon-Church then arrives and challenges but is easily beaten up by Tex, who beats him with his old forerunner monitor body while the Reds watch.

Caboose gets F.I.L.S.S. to activate the safety protocol armor lockdown, which locks everyone's armor into Recovery Mode except for Caboose who's armor does not have that protocol (because his armor is a downgraded Mk V and not Mk VI). Epsilon-Church is let out along with Tucker out of Recovery Mode. The Reds are still in Recovery Mode (although Sarge believes he's died which is bad but also good because Grif is dead too) until Epsilon-Church make them agree not to attack Tex. They reluctantly agree and are set free. Sarge notes his neck was killing him. The Red Team have a debate with Blue Team about whether or not to let Tex free. Epsilon-Church ultimately lets Tex free by convincing her not to hurt anybody but letting her hit Tucker, due to a crack he made earlier.

As Church and Tex get reaquainted, Sarge orders Simmons to re-enter the data of the Blues back into the database. Simmons gets right on it while Tex and Church leave the facility to handle something personal. After Simmons re-enters the Blues data, with a little help from F.I.L.S.S., he and Grif go over the records. They reveal that the Reds and Blues only exist to test the skills of the Freelancers and are staffed by the army's worst soldiers. Upon the revelation that the entire Red and Blue war was for nothing, Sarge sadly and angrily walks out of the room and within the next 10 seconds, builds a makeshift Red base out of junk. He declares that he is done with his role as a Sergeant and that he quits before leaving his teammates to sulk by himself.

When Caboose recieves a Recovery Beacon from Epsilon-Church (he was shot by Tex to draw out Washington and the Meta), he desperately pleads for Sarge to help him save Church. While Grif and Simmons believe that Sarge would never help a Blue, Sarge, surprisingly, agrees to help Caboose. Grif refuses to tag along, recalling that Sarge quit, but Sarge admits that he wasn't ordering anybody to go with him him, but they can come if they want. After asking his teammates "Do you ever wonder why we're here?", Sarge proceeds to give a bold and passionate speech regarding the reasons why Grif, Simmons, and Tucker remained in the Red and Blue armies, but can't think of anything to say to Caboose. At the climax of the speech, Sarge declares that he will get back at Command for "taking them from their families and using them all these years." His speech convinces Grif and the others to go with him, so they all prepare to board a transport to go help Church and Tex.

Sarge and the others arrive at the Freelancer facility just as the Meta betrays Washington and is about to kill him. He warns everyone to "brace for impact" as Grif crash lands the Pelican, which stops inches from Doc and the edge of the cliff. At first he is angry at Grif for crashing the ship, but then agrees with him when he says it's just a rental and kicks the crashed pelican down a cliff. The Reds and Blues regroup around the storage unit. Sarge is then ordered by Wash to find anything that can be used as a power supply. When the Meta attacks again, he leads the Reds and Tucker to fight back. Sarge manages to land several shots on the Meta with his shotgun, but this does little to slow down the overshielded Meta. As the Meta tries to choke Sarge to death, Sarge attaches the Warthog's tow hook to the Meta's chest piece. Sarge asks the Meta if the Warthog looks like a big cat before he gets dragged over the edge of the cliff. After seeing Grif get dragged down with the Meta, Sarge talks about Grif's death, mentioning that he will only be remembered until he is replaced. When Tucker suggests that Grif is still alive, Sarge insists that Grif died from the fall, and claims that checking to see if Grif lived would go against Grif's dying wishes, and that it would be a waste of time. When Grif calls out for help, Sarge comments on Grif's "dangling on the job," and that he hates cliffhangers.

After the interrogation by the UNSC, the Reds are seen commenting on Blue team's newest member, and Sarge mentions that the new guy may actually be able to shoot. He then suggests that they all go home and asks if the rest of the team had overcome their fear of flying. He is last seen boarding a UNSC Hornet stolen by Grif.

Relationships with other characters
Sarge has developed many relationships with both the Red Team and also the Blue Team.

Delusions
Sarge's battle plans tend to be delusively grandiose and seriously flawed, and he favors overly complicated plans that involve heavy casualties in his own forces, primarily Grif, sometimes making suicidal plans even when there is no actual problem to solve. Even if his plans rely on the strength of numbers, he may see fit to have Grif killed anyway. He displays frequent periods of nostalgia and compares his plans to notable figures from film, such as John Wayne and Indiana Jones. At other times, he devises plans that take ideas from popular culture, most of which are purely fiction anyway, including the Incredible Hulk, Star Wars and Spider-Man. Sometimes he makes incompetent blunders in his plans that are not immediately evident to him, but the rest of the team will criticize him for. He is also rather paranoid, and often concocts implausible theories to explain simple events. Many of these will revolve around the Blues as their primary antagonists, as a result of Sarge's intense hatred of them.

Recently, a complete dependence on command has been showcased; when a new arrival in the canyon, who the Reds think has joined their team, informs them that command sent her to replace a dead commanding officer, Sarge at first refuses to believe it, but when Grif makes a few clever comments about how command could be wrong about other things which Sarge staunchly believes in, he believes that he is dead and due to his complete trust in red command, allows the other Reds to bury him alive. Sarge also has some deluded memories when he deleted the Blues, he believes, Simmons deleted the Blues, Sarge killed Grif and Simmons turning into a Mongoose.

Skills
Sarge is a skilled soldier, having managed to capture Tex as well as fight off, with the assistance of Caboose, the attacking hordes of soldiers in Battle Creek. In episode 99 he kills at least two Wyoming clones with his shotgun despite the Freelancer's skill. His rank suggests that he is a veteran of combat. In addition, during one of the Episode 100 endings, he is explained to have commanded many Red forces over the years after his tour in Blood Gulch.

Sarge is skilled in mechanics, though his skill level and success fluctuates from flawed to almost revolutionarily genius, having built three separate robots, two of which were assembled simultaneously in a short period of time from color-coded robot kits. He has also created a fully functional weather control device into Lopez, though he never used it as he was unable to find a set of cheap batteries. Although he initially claims that he is unable to repair their jeep, he later manages to fix a derelict near-identical jeep by installing a solar/cold fusion power source with little equipment in the wasteland. However, his work is not flawless, as when he turned Simmons into a cyborg, the latter claimed that he would occasionally shoot himself in the foot for some unknown reason, which Sarge claims is "user-error". He has also claims to have developed a levitation device. Sarge has a passion for making ridiculously complicated and impressive devices and often uses any technical problem as an excuse to develop them, only to be disappointed when others (usually Grif) point out much simpler solutions. Sarge had also built a new robot body for Lopez before Reconstruction.

Sarge also appears to act as the Red Team's medical officer, as he has performed surgery on both Simmons and Grif in a relatively short amount of time, and both seem to be healthy. However, Sarge clearly knows very little about bodily functions, as he uses a diagram of a cow as an aid during Grif's surgery, claims that the body can produce any oxygen it needs when under stress without breathing, claiming that "the chest is strictly reserved for digestion" and advises Caboose to lift a heavy weight with his back as opposed to his legs, although, Sarge maybe deliberately attempting to injure Caboose.

He seems to have lost his ability to beat Tex in Revelation, as she is more than capable of beating him. However, unlike their previous fight, where Sarge was unaware she was girl, he openly admits he has no idea how to handle her becasue he doesn't fight girls. In addition, the Tex in Revelation may have been using a more advanced robot that could easily overcome Sarge, which is likely as Tex is seen preforming super human feats of strength that no normal human could along with some very impressive agility and running speed.

Sarge seems to be capable of planning out attacks quite well as demonstrated when he and Grif beat Agent Washington during Revelations chapter 3 and when he and Lopez captured Tex. However, most of the time, he suggests plans that either protect him, kill Grif, or involve the construction of a complicated device in favor of one that actually achieves their goals. However, the aforementioned succeeding plans Sarge had come up with were not very complex nor did they guarantee victory, suggesting dumb luck may have been a factor.

Weak Passwords
Sarge seems to have a habit of making weak passwords. (i.e. Making his password, "password" or the access code, "access code".) This annoys Simmons greatly. The only time he came up with something orginal was "Codeword: Dirtbag", which was just so Robot# 2 would punch Grif in the face, as well as using "shotgun" to tell Grif when to crash through a wall in Upon Further Review. He also used non weak passwords to disable lopez's lying mode and to get root access to the intel message to command (though he still made the access code "access code")

Rank
As shown in chapter 4 of Red vs Blue Reconstruction, when the Meta forges the transmission to Red Base, in the right hand corner it says Sarge is a Staff Sergeant.

Trivia

 * Sarge wields a shotgun at most times, according to himself so he will be prepared when the Zombies attack.
 * While Sarge prefers the shotgun, he has used a Magnum many times, particulary during seasons 1 and 2. He also used it to defend himself and Caboose while fighting the Flag Zealots at Battle Creek. He has continued to keep it as his sidearm as of Reconstruction.
 * He also enjoys seeing Grif suffering, mainly due to his hatred towards him.
 * A running gag in the series is that Sarge frequently says "it was worth it" when Grif is almost killed.
 * In Red vs. Blue: ODST, it is revealed that Sergeant Johnson was Sarge's former mentor (or at least so he claims).
 * It should be noted that the video in question was a Gamestop advertisement and may not be canon.
 * Sarge has devloped a fear of heights from jumping out of ships from orbit, possibly hinting that he was once an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.
 * Sarge was the first of the main characters to appear as a CGI rendered character in the Holiday Special.
 * In episode 14, just before being possessed by Church, he says "I haven't seen troop movements this coordinated since my days on Sidew-egekurkurk!" indicating that he may have been stationed on Sidewinder before being transfered to Blood Gulch. Possibly at the same time as Church.
 * Sarge claims to have never hit a girl despite bashing Tex in the head with his shotgun early in The Blood Gulch Chronicles, but it should be noted that at the time, everyone was fooled by Tex's voice modifier, and thought she was male.
 * In episode 14, Sarge meets Church in "the afterlife". Even though Church is actually an AI and Sarge is dead. Either the Alpha Church idea didn't exist then or Sarge was unconscious not dead and Church was in his mind. However, it may be more likely that when Sarge was shot, the bullet didn't kill him (as the previous idea suggested) but put his armor into recovery mode (as seen in Chapter 12 of Revelation). Church was with him because recovery mode is an electronic feature, meaning AI's can appear inside them. Sheila was also in recovery mode which is why she was there but once Sarge was saved by CPR (for a bullet to the head) recovery mode deactivated. Sarge probably forgot about it because of the trauma from the bullet's impact against his helmet. Thus explaining why Church and Sarge were together in 'the afterlife'.
 * In Deja View, he initially explains they (the Reds) are going home, which Grif assumes is back to Earth, when in reality they go back to Blood Gulch (Which was "Home" to the series for the first five seasons). He also gets a jetpack and promptly uses it to steal the Blues' flag.
 * Sarge is the second Red to get into an argument with a bird (this time an Eagle), the first being Grif in Relocated Part Two.
 * Since the series first premiered, Sarge's name has never been known. He has simply been called "Sarge".
 * Sarge is the first of the reds to arrive in Halo Reach as seen in the Reach Mini Series: Episode 2
 * Sarge's screen name is GrifKilla51, as seen in the PSA You Know What We Mean. It's possible the 51 might be something significant to Sarge, like his age or birth date.
 * When Church first possesses Sarge in Season 1 and attempts to tell Tex that it's him, she replys by saying he is too short to be Church. This is most likely poking fun at the fact that all of the spartan models in the Halo Engine are exactly the same height. It should also be noted that because of this, Sarge appears significantly shorter than everyone else in Luke Mckay's Red vs Blue drawings. It could also be a reference to Star Wars: A New Hope in which Princess Leia says to Luke Skywalker "Aren't you short to be a Stormtrooper?"