RAMBO is a famous character whose life is chronicled in the Rambo film series – but is he based on a real person? John Rambo is a no-nonsense army veteran dealing with PTSD. Played by Sylvester Stallone in the famous Rambo movie series, he has become a character whose character blurs the lines of fact and fiction.

Is John Rambo a real person, or based on a real life story?
John Rambo is a character written by David Morrell, a writer who has no record of serving in the army, it is believed. As a result, this character is not necessarily based on anyone in particular, meaning the character is totally fictionalised. According to Morrell, the name came about after he stumbled across a brand of apple called Rambo in Pennsylvania. The apple was named after Peter Gunnarsson Rambo, who discovered a strain of apple seeds which was later cultivated in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey and took “its name from the families by whom it was introduced into notice”.

When Morrell heard the name, he says he was inspired by “the sound of force” in the name Rambo and used it for his character. However, Morrell also intended the name to be similar to that of the author Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote a prisoner of war book A Season in Hell. As well as that, a soldier named Arthur J Rambo’s name is visible in the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC, who went by the name of John. He was a real-life veteran, but this Rambo never returned from the war, and was not the basis for the character.

In the novel and first film, Rambo appeared as a soldier with PTSD and had difficulty adjusting to normal life. He is prone to violence because of torture which he suffered in the war, and, in later films and novels, was seen as someone trying to avoid conflict, while being willing to fight and do anything to save those close to him. John Rambo was first seen in the novel First Blood, from 1972, where he is found hitchhiking in Kentucky. He is arrested for vagrancy and, while in a small cell, starts having flashbacks of his days as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and begins to fight off police who are holding him.

Some police who try to cut his hair and shave him and slashed and killed, after which Rambo flees and hides in the mountains, while becoming the focus of a manhunt. Rambo is hunted down by Special Forces Colonel Sam Trautman and Sheriff Teasle, who originally arrested him, in a climactic ending. In this, Rambo and Teasle have a long fight, where Rambo kills himself after shooting Teasle, which eventually leads to Teasle’s death.

The first film, needless to say, is somewhat different, where Rambo turns himself into Trautman rather than killing himself, which then led to spawning a huge number of sequels. The most recent film. Rambo: Last Blood, caused David Morrell some issues, and he even took to Twitter to distance himself from it. Rambo: First Blood Part II, the second part of the Rambo franchise is on TV tonight (April 7) so fans may want to quickly binge the first film before it arrives on TV.