Beloved television painter Bob Ross used to be a master sergeant in the United States Air Force, where his primary job was to be the guy who screamed at raw recruits to make them scrub the latrines.

A closer look

Beloved television painter Bob Ross used to be a master sergeant in the United States Air Force, where his primary job was to be the guy who screamed at raw recruits to make them scrub the latrines. He spent twenty years being the toughest, meanest guy on the base before vowing that if he ever left the military, he would never yell at anyone again. He traded in his drill instructor persona to become a soft-spoken, culturally adored icon painting happy little trees and soothing anxious insomniacs across the globe. It is profoundly comforting to know that even the most hardcore military men can just decide one day to pivot entirely to aggressive gentleness, rocking a spectacular perm while bringing absolute peace to public access television