Dick Simmons


 * "Suck it, Blue!"
 * &mdash;Simmons referring to the Blue Team

Reasonably smart and rational, Private First Class Dick Simmons is the level-headed straight man of the Red Team. He is a compulsive sycophant towards Sarge, despite the latter's psychopathic and frequently delusional leadership; in episode 40, Simmons states that he relies on Sarge "for love and support". As a result, Grif frequently calls Simmons a "kiss-ass". Simmons and Grif have a love-hate relationship, and spend much of their time bickering and chatting with each other, with Simmons reacting to the various outrageous statements that Grif makes. In Episode 38, Tucker hears them bickering on his radio and concludes that Simmons and Grif are in love, wondering why they cannot see it. In season 4, Simmons is shown to be very self-conscious; in Episode 70, he runs in tears back to the Blue Base when Church claims that Grif is intelligent and that Simmons is self-important. In Episode 54, he claims that he can mentally multiply any two large numbers, and gives an incorrect answer when tested, but maintains an air of confidence in doing so. He has also not used the bathroom for three years, claiming that he only uses the bathroom at home, because he is shy. According to him, 'It's going to be an eventful homecoming'. In addition, he has a developed a phobia of snakes, validated in Episode 89.

Cyborg Body
After the Reds lose Lopez, Sarge surgically changes Simmons into a cyborg so that they will have someone with better capability to repair things. Sarge dismissed Grif's idea of getting a new robot from Command, claiming that it could be reprogrammed 'as easily as Lopez'. For a while, Sarge calls him "Simmons 2.0", but, in season 4, Sarge reverts to calling him just "Simmons" again. Simmons' leftover body parts — except for his spleen, which Sarge decides to inflate and use for "general recreation and esprit de corps" — are used to save Grif's life when he is run over by Sheila. But unknown why since Sarge claims to hate Grif (Most likely to have a legitimate reason to make Simmons a cyborg).

Simmons' new robotic body was created by Sarge, using some spare parts including a Fax machine, as a result all faxes come through Simmons' ass. His robotic body also led him to sometimes shoot himself in the foot and his body is apparently based on a Freon-cooling system.

Demotion
In season 4, Simmons runs afoul of Sarge's fickle nature: When he insists that Sheila is still roaming the gulch, Sarge declares him insane and demotes him. Having lost his purpose in life, Simmons suffers a breakdown, exiles himself from the Red Team, paints his armour mostly blue, and, assisted by Sheila, begins to wage a one-man war against his former team-mates. Simmons actually succeeds in "capturing" Grif, forcing Sarge and Donut to launch a rescue operation. But the two are foiled by Church, who suddenly returns to Blood Gulch. Although Simmons attempts to hide his true identity from Church, the latter privately reveals to Sheila that he has recognized Simmons all along. After apparently hearing Church's conversation with Vic Jr., Simmons returns to the Red Base to relay information. With the rest of the Reds reluctant to accept him back, Simmons changes into maroon armour. Nevertheless, after a quick trial, Sarge imposes a hefty fine for treason and insubordination, to be split between himself and Grif. Going forward, Sarge frequently called Simmons a traitor until Season 5, when Simmons went back to his normal role. Sarge seems to like Simmons even more, even saying that Simmons burying Sarge alive was a multi-layered tactic and that his treasonous insurrections hold the unit together.

Role in Plot
Simmons appears in the first episode discussing with Grif about their reasons in Blood Gulch, and then called down to name the new jeep, which they call the Warthog. When Donut arrives, both Simmons and Grif send him off on a fool's errand to get elbow grease and headlight fluid. Later, he and Grif come to save Donut with the Warthog, and pin Church and Tucker behind a rock. They then leave the jeep to find another way to get them, but are attacked by Caboose and Shiela and are forced to retreat back to their base. When Shiela attacks Red Base, the Reds are saved by Sarge's air strike. During Tex's first attack on Red Base, he is knocked out, and when he wakes up, reports Donut's serious injury, and guards Tex who in now a prisoner. During Church's resuce, he is knocked out by a possessed Sarge. When Donut returns, healed, pink-clad, and bearing Lopez's new voice chip, he warns Sarge to be careful when installing it, only to be ignored, and ending with Lopez speaking Spanish. As Tex launches her second attack on the Reds with Sheila, he and Sarge go to fight them off with the Warthog, only to be defeated moments later. In the final episode of the Blood Gulch series, Simmons was possessed by O'malley and when threatening to kill Sarge reveals that he'll take over the universe with an iron fist when he says, "Then everyone will kiss MY ass!".

After the events of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, Simmons, along with Grif, is transferred to a different base, with Grif being promoted to staff sergeant. Grif brings all of his typical laziness and incompetence to the role and the two soon face a firing squad for selling their ammo to the Blue Team (precisely what Simmons did to deserve this is unknown, though he might have taken part in selling their ammo to the blues with Grif.). Sarge, on a mission to stop Washington, rescues them, and the three attack Wash and the Blues. An attack by the Meta forces them to team up, and Simmons and the other Reds assist Wash and Church in infiltrating the Freelancer base. Here his insecure side surfaces again after Sarge praises Caboose for being willing to sacrifice himself for Church. A bitter Simmons threatens to kill the hapless Blue on several occasions after this. When Wash and Church are presumably killed in the base's explosion, the Reds and Caboose escape, and are awarded Valhalla as a result.

In the series of Recreation, Simmons slowly realizes that Sarge doesn't give him the respect that he thought he once had and becomes more unwilling to follow Sarge's orders causing the roles of Simmons and Grif to switch, surprising the entire red team. Later, when Sarge and Grif leave to help Caboose in finding Tucker, he seems to take charge of the remaining red's and tries to blow up the blue base, but is slow down when he insults (by accident) Lopez by being a robot and later a Mexican when trying to apologies. He is again slowed down when he learns from Donut that Caboose still has the Espilon AI. When he tries to finish his goal of blowing up the blue base, he finds Donut in the blue base meeting the Meta, then runs for his life to the red base. After a continous battle with the Meta, the red team try to get to safety as Simmons, Donut, and Lopez make a suicide run to find the Meta's vehicle. When he finds the vehicle (by running into it as it is cloaked), they realize that it no longer functions. As a last attempt of saving the red team, Simmons tries to use the vehicles machine gun turret to destroy the Meta, unfortunately it can't move due to the Warthog not functioning. Washington then appears seemingly to save the red's, but reveals that he is working with the Meta and demands to have the Espilon unit. The red's still confuse don't give an answer, making Washington shoot Lopez in the head and then Donut in the stomach, leaving Simmons alive which he calls to Donut hoping he is alive.

In Revelation, Simmons is forced to call for a medical officer (Doc) and reveals that Donut is dead. Before Washington and the Meta appear, he says he is sorry of putting Doc in the middle of the problem, wishing it wasn't him who was sent.

Recurring Gags
Recently though, Simmons has had the misfortune of not calling shotgun in time, being constantly beaten by Grif. He nearly broke this streak in episode 9 of Reconstruction, however Grif promptly pulled rank on him and took the passenger seat for himself.
 * During the Blood Gulch Chronicles Simmons has called shotgun before Grif almost every time.
 * During the Blood Gulch Chronicles, every time Simmons is hit or knocked unconscious, he shouts where he is hurt, e.g. "Ow, the back of my head!", "The front of my face!", or "The back of my lower legs!" He even goes as far as saying "Ooh, the back of your head!" when Church knocks out Sarge before he executes Simmons for treason.
 * Also, a running gag of Simmons' dubious ethnicity begins when Grif, unable to understand Lopez' Spanish, believes Simmons can translate, due to being "of a Latino persuasion." Simmons, however, insists that he is Dutch-Irish. This is referenced a few more times before being dropped, until it is resurrected in Season 4, where Donut lists the language menu options when called by Simmons, and says "For unconfirmed Dutch-Irish, press one too, as in, also." The joke finally returns in episode 99, when the Reds (except Donut, for some reason) fight the Wyoming copies in the Warthog. As Simmons shoots at them with the chain-gun, he says "Suck it, cracker!". Wondering why he would use such a slur, Grif asks "Cracker? I thought you said you were Dutch-Irish!", to which Simmons only responds "Fuck that shit, shut up and drive bitch!", and later calls the Wyoming clones "honky motherfuckers!"
 * During Recreation, Simmons always ends up destroying a Mongoose. First he destroyed one of the Mongooses Lopez build by simply crashing it. Second when he was aiming at the Meta with a rocket launcher, he hits the newly built Mongoose Lopez just built.

Relationship with Other Characters
Red Team-Simmons is the most logical of the red team and the "freind" to all the red's (except Lopez). Simmons is Sarges left hand man, being second in command, and most of the time agrees with him. Simmons relies on Sarge for love and support. In Recreation, Simmons makes a virtual Sarge asking him if it's okay if they could be a family and wishes that Sarge gave him more than compliments. Yet, when Sister said that their commanding officer was dead (really the blue's) and came to replace him, Simmons was willingly to convince Sarge he was dead and quickly took command of the red team.

Grif and Simmons have a love-hate relationship, as they always bicker against one another and seem to never really get along, yet they spend much of their time togeather talking about the war and sometimes dumb topics. In Season 2, after they both go through there surgeries, Simmons puts Grif on a better diet fearing that he would kill his organs he donated to Grif or Grif himself. In season 4, after Simmons changes sides, Grif came to get him back for the red's stating it isn't the same without him, and that he hasn't change or of what he thinks of him, either being a insult or a compliment, which Simmons answers "Ah...good old Grif.".

Simmons relationship with Donut is quite strange, as they got along quite well as a team, Simmons continually got annoyed whenever Donut made any remark on what was going on (maybe due to the fact they sounded sexual) and hated Donut on taking his job in season 4. Still in season 5, after Donut was crushed by the space ship Simmons stated he would miss him and that Donut was like the "sister" he never had. Also after Washington shot Donut, Simmons was shocked by what happened and attempted to save him.

As for Lopez, Simmons and him don't get along well togeather at any point. Lopez continually insults Simmons and Simmons accidently insults Lopez by being a robot and a Mexican. Still they have similar interests and both having robotic features makes it easier for them to work togeather.

Blue Team-Simmons doesn't really have a relationship with any of the blue's as most of the time interacts with them by telling them "Suck it, Blue!". Yet in season 4, after being called insane by Sarge and having Donut taking his job, Simmons quickly paints his armor blue and willingly join the blue team of Shelia, which at the time worked well togeather, and Church, who insulted Simmons and forcing him to do much work eventhough knowing it was him. In Reconstruction, Simmons works with Church in order to stop the Meta, but nothing else.

He has barely any relationship with Tucker, only in the season 2 finale of being the only one wanting to know what he was yelling about and in season 3 they spoke little to each other after being sent into the future. The same is for Tex, who only have a relationship to one another by being continually attacked by her.

The only real relationship of a blue which Simmons has is with Caboose. Simmons has a "hatred" for Caboose as he continuously take the attention and liking of Sarge, which Simmons greatly hates; so Simmons threatens the innocent blue everytime he sees Sarge and Caboose togeather. This relationship started in season 3 after Sarge calls Caboose his "little rascal". This relationship emerged again in Reconstruction and Recreation after meeting Caboose again.

Others-

Talents
Simmons has some skills as a soldier, defeating some of the Wyoming clones with some degree of ease using the Warthog's turret. He has some useful delaying skills as shown in Reconstruction when he tries to stall their execution, delaying them for about a minute until the Reds there decided it would be too much trouble. He also has keen computer skills, as he was able to control the teleporters in reuniting with everyone, and was able to hack into Project Freelancers main computers. In Recreation he also showed great running and avoiding skills when escaping the Meta after being shot at as well as a motorcycle being thrown at him.

Trivia

 * Dick is short for Richard, making Simmons' name Richard Simmons. This is also the name of a famous exercise video actor.
 * Simmons spoke both the first and last lines of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, his first line ("hey") asking Grif "Why they were here?" and his last line ("Fuck!") was exclaimed after Grif called shotgun on the reds' new vehicle at the end of episode 100.