Tom Cruise's character in the movie was named David Shawn.
**SPOILERS**
At the end of the movie, when David Shawn was shooting up the place, and Brian Moreland (Hutton) goes to stop him, he shouts out "Shawn!" I would've thought in a moment of desperation like that, he would've said "Dave" or "David...," his first name. Any thoughts?
No, he was accustomed to addressing him by his last name. It is common in the military for people to address each other by last name; it's not really part of protocol or anything, just common.
shareWhen I was in Cadets I barely knew the first names of half my friends :P
shareOh no, I understand that...I have family in the military. It just seemed to me that that might have been a nice director's call, you know? :)
shareI'm a 3 in ROTC now and I don't know the first names of even guys I'm pretty well acquainted with. It just happens that way, you're absolutely right.
share3 years at VMI and now a year in the Navy. I find it hard to believe I was ever called "Chris" by anyone but family, yet I'm fairly certain that my high school teachers called me by my first name and that was only 4 years ago.
shareWhen I joined the Army and went to Ft. Knox for basic, I had no first name. Your last name becomes your first name. And if there's someone with the same last name as you. It goes like this, "Smith M. and Smith R. get over here".
Go Army
The only people who ever called by my first name in my entire military career (I'm retired now) were either officers old enough to be my dad or the guys I dated :). To this day, I still have friends who call me "SSG J". What's really weird is it doesn't seem weird.
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I have a not to common last name, and when I was in the NAVY, my cousin, who was also in the navy and shares my last name almost got arrested when he came to visit me just after I got out of boot camp. He had his nametag on per regulations, and when my Company Commander saw his nametag, he thought he was going to capture an intruder!!
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It's a tough universe...If you're going to survive, you've really got to know where your towel is.
Lorenzo D. A very interesting story and I was in the Navy as
well. It was common practice on board my ship for
enlisted sailors to address each other by
last name. I learned this habit during my
recruit training days and many of my shipmates
called me by my last name most of the time. Even
on shore leave or liberty we still called each
other by sir names. It's also common practice
in the Marine Corps, Army & Air Force as well.
Lorenzo Sunny Florida
"I have a not to common last name, and when I was in the NAVY, my cousin, who was also in the navy and shares my last name almost got arrested when he came to visit me just after I got out of boot camp. He had his nametag on per regulations, and when my Company Commander saw his nametag, he thought he was going to capture an intruder!!"
I didn't know they had "Companies" in the Navy.
Lorenzo D. Companies are designated only in recruit training.
I attended navy boot camp in San Diego and
all recruit units were divided into companies.
Hence the title of company commander which is
used for the E-7 through E-9 chief petty officers
who are assigned to train new recruits.
Lorenzo Sunny Florida
I was in a British public (that means private!) school. It wasn't a military academy, but it was all-boy and had a large Cadet Training Corps and a large armoury (although absolutely nowhere near the size of the one in Taps, machine-guns were only able to fire single-shot, and most of the firearms were heavy bolt-action WWII-surplus R1 Mark III Short Magazine Lee-Enfields).
I never, ever called even my best friends at school by their first names, even out of class. I'm in contact with a couple of them now, and it's still mostly surnames, 25 years later. I knew what all their first names were, so it wasn't for lack of knowledge.
However, when Shawn's Red Berets have finished their exhibition drill, Moreland says, "Thanks, Dave." And he calls Dwyer "Alex" all the time.
So ths strict military academy isn't as hung up on surnames as mine was. However, maybe Moreland thinks using Shawn's surname will snap him to attention more than his first name.
Exactly. Calling him 'Dave' is intimate and personal, as when he's thanking him for the silent drill in his honour. However when Shawn is firing off the machine gun he calls him Shawn as he always does in an OFFICIAL capacity as his Corps Commander. It is him as Ranking Cadet commanding his Bravo Company Commander to cease firing, not Brian telling Dave something.
"It is not enough to like a film. You must like it for the right reasons."
- Pierre Rissient
A lot of guys who are not in the military refer to each other by last names. It sounds very butch. Gym teachers are notorious for calling students by last names. Most gym teachers are bozos unfit for military service. But they act like they are decorated combat veterans of Special Operations Forces.
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