Colonel Trautman

Trautman arrives in Hope when the hunt for Rambo has already turned into a war. The sheriff thinks he is dealing with a drifter. Trautman corrects him: he is facing the best soldier he ever trained, a man built to survive alone in enemy territory. He warns that Rambo could have killed everyone and did not. He asks for the hunt to stop, and the sheriff will not listen. Over the radio he tries to talk Rambo into surrendering, without luck. In the end Trautman steps in front of Rambo and speaks to him like the commander he used to be. Rambo falls apart, and Trautman takes him in.

Trautman visits Rambo in prison and offers a deal: a mission in Vietnam in exchange for freedom. The order is to photograph a POW camp and come back, no combat. He follows the operation from the base, next to Murdock. When Murdock orders the extraction abandoned, Trautman understands the mission was built to come to nothing: the government did not want to find prisoners. He stands up to Murdock and, at the end, asks Rambo what he wants him to tell everyone. The answer is a simple plea: that the country love its soldiers as much as they love it.

Trautman looks Rambo up in Thailand and asks for help with an operation in Afghanistan. Rambo says he is done fighting, and the colonel goes on alone, backed by the mujahideen. He is captured by the Soviet colonel Zaysen, who interrogates him and threatens to kill him. When Rambo storms the fortress and frees him, Trautman finds his old soldier again, still willing to die for him. In the final battle the colonel fights next to Rambo and the Afghans, surrounded by troops and helicopters. In the end, the two leave together.

Richard Crenna played Trautman in the first three films. Kirk Douglas was cast in the role for First Blood but left during the shoot. Crenna died in 2003.