Dennis Haskell, Winthrop Professor of English and Cultural Studies at University of Western Australia,[2] has pointed that the drill sergeant's harsh tirade to the recruits with insults both sexual (e.g. "why are you looking at me are you a queer?")
"[4] Haskell notes that "Weapons Training" had not started out as solely a dramatic monologue, and its original title was "Portrait of a Drill Instructor".
The early version contained an introductory verse with a soldier's memory of him which specifically identified the instructor as British: I can still see his face thrust forward out of love for the little sunburned rookies hunched in their chairs or sweating at attention see, too,
his true-blue British eyes [...] [5]The introductory verse was omitted from the final version making the poem less of a personal portrait and more of a general depiction of the military culture which the sergeant personified with his macho dehumanising language.
[6] In their 2009 analysis of the poem from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics, David Butt and Annabelle Lukin have proposed that while the drill instructor is ostensibly teaching physical skills to the recruits, the structure of his language "foregrounds the regulation of mental experience as central to the training",[7] training that fosters the unquestioning obedience to authority that may be crucial to their survival in combat.