Pfc. Bill Leyden

Bill Leyden is one of the seasoned Marines of K Company, already hardened by combat when fresh recruits arrive. He greets the newcomers with blunt humor and unsentimental appraisal, the veteran's shorthand for sizing up who might survive. Wary and quick-tongued, he treats the war as something to be gotten through rather than glorified.

Brendan Fletcher gives Leyden the flat, tired wit of a man who has stopped performing bravery for anyone's benefit, including his own. He's part of the show's larger achievement — building out the unit so thoroughly that even its lesser-known faces feel lived-in, weathered by specific fatigue rather than generic grit.