No other institution illustrates the tensions between competing normative ideals and discursive behaviours more than the army. At the turn of the eighteenth century the British military had a reputation for being particularly untrustworthy, licentious, immoral and drunk. Using autobiographical sources and focusing on subjective experience in relation to normative expectations, this article questions such stereotypes by looking at four men in the middle ranks of the army officer corps. The attempt of these four officers to understand, perform and negotiate competing norms illustrates the tension that often existed between the expectations of a variety of masculine discourses.