Beags
There's nothing new in Newt's concept (or Clarkson's); the Romans did it after setbacks - selecting every 10th man to be topped (decimation in the proper sense, not total wipeout as is commonly used in speech today) - to encourage the troops. Great morale booster, eh?
Then there's the often partially quoted extract from Voltaire's Candide:
Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les huître
"In this country [England], it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others"
(It was Admiral Byng wot got shot for not trying hard enough at the Battle of Minorca - 1756, I think)
Does this count as "banter"?
Mister B