Sgt. Larry Shawn "Pappy" Patrick

Pappy is a team leader in First Recon Battalion, a steady, unglamorous NCO doing his job as the invasion of Iraq begins. He is older than most of the men around him, quiet and businesslike, more interested in getting his Marines through the day intact than in the war's larger noise.

Josh Barrett plays him with a flat, unhurried competence that stands out precisely because the show is otherwise full of bravado and chatter. Pappy doesn't perform toughness — he just has it, in the small decisions and dry understatement of a man who has done this kind of work before and trusts procedure over adrenaline.