In his cover story, Soldier Boy is portrayed as a patriotic hero who fought in WWII for justice and liberty and gave his life to save America from a nuclear meltdown in 1984. According to the Legend, however, Soldier Boy never really fought on D-Day and only participated in publicity shoots and propaganda films with the American military at the time.
During his younger years, as the leader of Payback, Ben was a very arrogant, macho, violent and reckless bully who was at times abusive to those who disagreed with him, and had no qualms with using his status and power to intimidate and manipulate others for his own ends, using Black Noir and Gunpowder as his primary punching bags, but being willing to beat on the others which makes him a child abuser since they were teenagers at the time. This is seen when he used his contacts to make sure Noir wouldn't get his participation in a movie for being "not good enough”, seeing Noir’s ambition as an attempt to usurp and outshine him. His behavior caused his team to despise him. He also placed a high importance on traditional masculinity and "being a man", belittling and sometimes abusing those who failed to meet or opposed his views and standards of masculinity; something he said, in his words, was to "toughen them up". He retained his attitudes even after The Boys freed him from Russian captivity, nearly forty years after he was first captured.
As claimed by Grace Mallory during her recounting of the Nicaragua incident, Soldier Boy had a celebrity-like persona and was not used to people looking down on him, which led him to insult and belittle her when she refused his advances. He was also quite rash, as he nearly fired a rocket launcher without realizing he was aiming at a munitions dump that could obliterate half the camp and draw the attention of any enemy military forces operating nearby. He was a womanizer. According to Grace, Ben lacked the ability to "read the room", in that he always assumed that women were charmed by his machismo when they actually despised him for it.
In spite of his hyper-masculine persona, Soldier Boy was capable of showing respect and gave Grace a small gesture of appreciation when she killed an enemy soldier who was about to fire on him from behind. Furthermore, despite his arrogance and machismo, Soldier Boy was the only Supe during the Nicaragua incident seen to be fighting effectively and maintaining total composure in combat against the enemy, which was seen again when he fought Homelander for the first time at Herogasm. This shows that he possesses much greater discipline and skill in wielding his powers in actual combat, in marked contrast to the general lack of tactical capability, panicking and cowardice associated with most Supes, which could possibly be from his time as a soldier during WWII before he became Soldier Boy. Even when enraged, Ben's discipline showed as he fought effectively against Butcher and the Boys when they tried to stop him in Vought tower.
After returning home to the USA, fresh from captivity, Soldier Boy was shown to be very bitter and vindictive, immediately targeting his former teammates for death on a revenge rampage. For all his apparent homicidal tendencies, he does not seem to exhibit psychopathic behavior like Homelander and after he leaves Russia, he is shown actively avoiding taking civilian lives if he can help it (although he does avoid taking responsibility when he causes casualties). He showed remorse for the lives lost when he had unleashed his radiation blast, quietly admitting to Hughie that he wasn't a bad guy and he didn't mean to hurt them, though based off his later actions it is unknown if he was being genuine. He later killed a priest and nun that he was sure Mindstorm had brainwashed before even finding out if the priest had been brainwashed, as well as being prepared to detonate and destroy Vought tower, despite the civilians present, showing that he sometimes considers human lives a cost that can be paid. Soldier Boy also showed a lack of care for the casualties caused after his explosion at Herogasm, simply shrugging it off.
In his younger days, he was not considerate of collateral damage and death and was sometimes quite negligent at handling problems, as seen when a group of kids stealing a Mercedes Benz resulted in Soldier Boy hurling said car through an apartment building and killing Mother's Milk's family in the process. While the deaths were an accident, they were directly caused by Soldier Boy's recklessness. He was not held accountable for the deaths. When Milk confronted Soldier Boys on the death of his family, Soldier Boy was nonchalant, claiming he's killed many families over the years.
He can be civilized and polite with those he doesn't despise or perceive as enemies, as displayed when he went to The Legend's apartment to retrieve his super suit and asked him where he could find Crimson Countess, as well as his interactions with Hughie while resting at a motel. Though this also seemed to be a bit of a facade, as he later showed very little patience with Hughie when they were hunting down Mindstorm, but this could have been attributed to the fact that he felt Hughie's attitude was holding them back from the mission.
Soldier Boy's idea of family is directly connected to his general "alpha male" demeanor, as seen when he finally meets his son Homelander face to face. Ben's disappointment in Homelander, regarding him as "weak, sniveling p**sy" and "starved for attention", leads him to decide to kill his own son, uncaring of his newly discovered grandson Ryan and attacking him out of annoyance at the boy defiantly attacking him.
As the Supe who first started Herogasm, Soldier Boy has probably been exposed to and indulged in all manner of sexual activities, which may have made him more tolerant towards homosexuality, although there is not much evidence of this. When he returned to the USA and passed a gay couple being affectionate in public, his expression was one of disbelief, and it is unknown if he approved or not. He also frequently boasts about the many famous and beautiful women he has slept with, and he appeared to have a preference for older women as well, commenting on them aging like fine wine to Hughie.
While he doesn't hold any outright prejudice against black people (as he believed that the icon of the perfect and ideal American dad was Bill Cosby and not knowing of the scandals plaguing the comedian in recent years, his treatment of Black Noir was not racially motivated, and he respected Stan Edgar), Soldier Boy did crack down on Civil Rights protests during the 1960s and was complacent in an attempt by the U.S. federal government to help funnel drugs into black communities. It is possible he was made to do the former by Vought or the government, and it is confirmed that he was made do the latter by the government. He did not, however, question his orders, and is responsible for what happened.
In the early 1980s, he brutalized Black Noir after being confronted over having him barred from auditioning for Beverly Hills Cop after slandering his character, which ended with a threat to kill him should he try to "move on up" (a reference to The Jeffersons and a clear jab at Black Noir's ethnicity) on Soldier Boy's celebrity.
He speaks very fondly of Afghanistan and is proud of his role in raising publicity for their resistance against the Soviet invasion, calling them "the good guys". Because of this, he doesn't understand why the US invaded them after the September 11 terrorist attacks; after all, in the 1980s, the Afghan mujahideen was America's ally against the Soviet Union, and so Soldier Boy lacks the anti-Arab and Muslim prejudice that many Americans developed and exhibited after the War on Terror, the Gulf Wars and America's ongoing military commitments in the Middle East.
For all of Soldier Boy's flaws, he is a notably honorable person and always keeps his word, primarily shown through him keeping his part of the deal that he made with Butcher and Hughie to help them kill Homelander, even when the latter eventually overpowered him in combat. His sense of honor goes so far that he was even willing to continue the mission even after discovering that Homelander was his biological son, choosing to keep his word to Butcher and Hughie. He was also outraged when Butcher went back on their agreement, solely because of his attack on Ryan. His sense of honor does not excuse some of his actions though, as when Mindstorm trapped Butcher in his nightmares, he was willing to leave Butcher to die and assured Hughie he would keep his word about killing Homelander, believing that Butcher wouldn't mind giving his life for that.
Though shown to be quite courageous, Soldier Boy's time as a Russian lab rat had left him with a fear and hatred of being locked away again. When The Boys attempted to use a dose of Novichok to knock him out during their brawl at Vought Tower, he expressed fear and anger at the thought of being locked away, and this determination caused him to charge his most destructive blast of radiation yet to try and kill them all.
Soldier Boy also shows some naivety, truly believing that Crimson Countess loved him and she would go and rescue him, never realizing she always hated him. He loved Countess and hoped that that she would come and save him during his imprisonment. As such, he seemed genuinely shocked and hurt to find that she had never loved him and had abandoned him to the Russians for seemingly no reason beyond pure hatred. He also thought that she with his former teammates were paid by the Russians to betray and give him to them so they could use him as a laboratory rat in experiments and was greatly surprised that not only that they weren't paid but also did it out of spite. His naivety was also shown when, despite being repeatedly told that Noir had led the attack on him, he refused to believe it due to the fact he had beaten down Noir more than once. Soldier Boy's time as a lab rat has also left him unaware of modern technology and terms that most people know, as when Hughie questioned if he knew what the internet or GPS was, he tried to claim that Hughie made those words up.
Soldier Boy was a user of drugs. He frequently used marijuana, despite arresting people for it, and was a user of hard drugs such as cocaine. He was also quite pleased when using amphetamines, proceeding to claim it was how D-Day had been won (even though he wasn't present for it). He felt like a "jackass" when he was made to do a PSA video for Vought on not taking drugs and even commented on his hypocrisy for advocating drug avoidance.
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