Every unit has one. The soldier who raises his hand when the sergeant says, “Any questions?” The one who forgets to shave, shows up late and gets the whole squad smoked on a Saturday morning. We call this person the blue falcon. And in Bikini Bottom, that individual is Patrick Star.

To civilians, Patrick is just SpongeBob’s best friend — the goofy sidekick with no job, no ambition and a brain full of cotton candy. But to anyone who’s ever worn a uniform, he’s something far more familiar: the smiling saboteur, the well-meaning liability, the person you can’t leave unsupervised for five minutes without catching a misconduct charge by association.

Patrick isn’t evil. He’s worse. He’s friendly, enthusiastic and entirely unaware of the consequences of his actions, which is exactly why he keeps getting his friends in trouble.

Patrick checks every blue falcon box. He’s got poor situational awareness, questionable hygiene and an uncanny ability to say exactly the wrong thing at the worst possible moment. He once ate a chocolate bar and then spent an entire episode trying to frame someone else for the crime, despite having chocolate all over his face. In “I Had an Accident,” he breaks SpongeBob’s fragile psychological recovery by dressing up in a gorilla suit. And in “Big Pink Loser,” his desire to imitate SpongeBob leads to widespread chaos at the Krusty Krab, culminating in a disastrous attempt at food service that would get any E-3 locked out of the DFAC permanently.

He’s the guy who borrows your gear and brings it back broken. The guy who volunteers both of you for a 24-hour CQ shift because he “thought it would be fun.” And worst of all? He’s somehow your best friend.

In the armed forces, there’s a phrase: “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.”

But with Patrick, the line gets blurry. He’s not trying to ruin lives — he just does. His sheer lack of awareness is so profound that it becomes a superpower. You can’t get mad at him because he’s too stupid to understand what he did. But that doesn’t change that he just canceled your liberty.

In “The Secret Box,” he torments SpongeBob for an entire episode over the contents of a mysterious lockbox, only to reveal at the end that it contains nothing but a piece of string. It’s a perfect metaphor for what it’s like working with a blue falcon. You spend hours trying to track down the problem, only to find out there was no plan, no purpose — just pure, chaotic dumbassery.

The thing that makes blue falcons dangerous isn’t just what they do — it’s who they do it to. Patrick rarely ruins his own life. He ruins SpongeBob’s. He’s the walking embodiment of “You get smoked for what your buddy did.” SpongeBob ends up missing work, losing his job or facing some kind of underwater existential crisis, and Patrick just stands there blinking.

In a military context, Patrick would be the guy you share a barracks room with. The one who gets drunk, floods the latrine and passes out on your bunk, then wonders why you’re getting counseled by the first sergeant. He’d be the private who mistakes “police call” for “clean up your own trash,” then tells the command sergeant major that “nobody explained the standard.”

And somehow, despite all this, you still hang out with him. Blue falcons are never true villains. They’re just the idiots who make you look like one.

SpongeBob’s relationship with Patrick is one of the most psychologically accurate portrayals of enlisted friendship ever animated. He knows Patrick is a liability. He knows bringing him anywhere is a risk. And yet he keeps doing it. Why? Because in every squad, there’s that one guy everyone protects.

Patrick has that status. He’s the guy no one wants to throw under the bus — even though the bus is clearly headed straight for you. SpongeBob covers for him, defends him, even praises him. In “Rock-A-Bye Bivalve,” they raise a baby scallop together, and Patrick completely checks out of parenting — but SpongeBob never throws him out. He just sighs and handles it.

That’s how it is in the military. You don’t abandon your blue falcon. You adapt to him. And then you pray to every deity that he doesn’t show up drunk to the safety brief.

Patrick is different from your average burnout because he genuinely believes he’s helping. He’s the guy who thinks starting a fire in the motor pool is “innovation.” The guy who forgets to wear gloves on an ammo detail but explains it’s because he “wanted to feel more connected to the mission.”

That’s why he sticks around. He’s not mean. He’s not malicious. He’s just monumentally unfit for independent action — and too friendly to exile. You don’t promote him. You don’t trust him with keys. But you don’t leave him behind, either.

Deep down, every veteran has a soft spot for their own personal Patrick. Because, for all the chaos he causes, he’s still your guy. Your idiot. Your walking Article 15 with a heart of gold.

You just keep him far away from the sign-in roster and pray he doesn’t discover grenades.