Technicalities of War

Using a combination of Marine Corps training and Hollywood shtick, Warriors Inc. and its cadre of military consultants have cornered the market on war films.

Formed in 1985 by retired Marine Capt. Dale A. Dye, Warriors Inc.’s initial mission was to work with directors making realistic films about the Vietnam War. Since then, Warriors’ technical advisors have been involved in projects as diverse as “Small Soldiers” and Steven Spielberg’s latest film, “Saving Private Ryan.”

Warriors was also the technical advisor for the next big war film, “The Thin Red Line,” which is expected to be released in December. The Terence Malick movie is about World War II’s Battle of Guadalcanal, the first U.S. ground offensive of the war.

Dye’s job is to make the productions he works on factually accurate and transform pampered actors into believable screen warriors. He does this with a formula he learned in the military.

“I believe in in-your-face. The Marine Corps taught me how to be proactive--attack, attack, attack. . . . It’s a way of life shuffled with amateur psychology. That’s the way I approach Hollywood,” said Dye, a Vietnam veteran with two Purple Hearts.

With characteristic bravado, Dye says that until he arrived, Hollywood’s portrayal of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam was “bull--.”

Millions of moviegoers believed that Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” were accurate portrayals of the war. Warriors Inc. attempts to dignify Vietnam vets with, as Dye puts it, battle scenes and portrayals that are “real, down to the gnat’s ass.”

“I don’t want to be the guy they sit in a director’s chair and wake up only when they want to know which side the [campaign] ribbons go on,” he added.

Dye declined to say how much he earns as a technical advisor, but sources said he typically earns $4,000 per week and often works on a film for months at a time.

The cornerstone of his approach to training actors to come across as believable soldiers is to put them through an eight-to-10-day course of basic military training.

Warriors is the only technical consultant in Hollywood that insists on teaching actors the fundamentals of soldiering before production begins. Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise are among the actors who have gone through the training. There they are treated as recruits and taught how to carry a rifle, go on patrol and look and act like soldiers.

“We presume that this actor, much like a kid coming off the bus at Parris Island and Ft. Jackson is a dry sponge,” Dye said. “We have to take that bottle of military knowledge and experience and pour it into that sponge.

“If this is a good recruit or actor, he’s going to suck that up. . . . The good actors--and I’ve trained a bunch of good actors--will assimilate this stuff, internalize it to the extent when they’re called on to be cold, hungry and scared . . . it comes right through their eyes.”

John C. McGinley, who played Sgt. O’Neill in Oliver Stone’s “Platoon,” said that Dye’s training regimen is so realistic that fellow actors Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger were injured while preparing for their roles in the movie. The three actors and other cast members took jungle training in the Philippines.

“It was a two-week course. Dale had guys infiltrating the perimeter every night. Of course, it wasn’t Vietnam, but all you had to do was take a minuscule leap to take you there. It was that realistic,” McGinley said.

Warriors’ first big break came in 1986 with “Platoon.” “Stone hired me and that opened the door in Hollywood,” Dye said.

Some of the other films he’s been an advisor on include Stone’s “Heaven and Earth” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Forrest Gump” and the TV miniseries “Rough Riders.” Along the way he’s picked up some minor acting roles, appearing in “Starship Troopers,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Under Siege” and “Saving Private Ryan.”

Dye, 53, landed in Hollywood a few months after completing a 21-year career in the Marine Corps. Encouraged by a group of Vietnam buddies with ties to Hollywood and the media, he set out to show movie moguls how to make war movies, descending on their offices “just like a Marine attacking a hill.”

The attack was repulsed, forcing Dye to regroup.

“The only reason they didn’t run me out of town was because I was entertaining,” Dye said. “Nobody had ever taken that direct, soldierly approach. Everybody had always kowtowed to Hollywood.”

Dye, who said he has “always been a natural storyteller,” served as a combat correspondent in the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. “Full Metal Jacket,” a 1987 film by Stanley Kubrick, was based on the book “The Short-Timers,” written by a fellow Marine correspondent, the late Gustav Hasford.

Twenty-five years after the last U.S. troops left Vietnam, Dye is still remembered as “a colorful character,” said a spokesman at Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, where Dye worked as a public affairs officer.

The Marines have recalled him for six days active duty next month to film an anti-drug message for the corps. He proudly showed the order to a visitor at his desert residence near Palmdale, which includes a firing range.

The remote location helps him concentrate and prepare for assignments, Dye said.

Getting the facts right in a war movie forces a technical advisor to walk “a real thin line,” and he doesn’t always get his way. Warriors Inc. consulted on “Casualties of War,” a 1986 Brian De Palma film that was praised by most movie critics but provoked guffaws from veterans.

In one scene, the character played by Michael J. Fox blows up a Viet Cong grenade in mid-air by hitting it with a round fired from a grenade launcher.

Dye and Mike Stokey, a Warriors staff member, bristle when asked about the inaccuracies in “Casualties of War” and other movies they have worked on.

“We’re in an ego-driven business. Sometimes you’re dead right and the record, research or your personal experience proves you’re dead right,” Dye said. “But you have a director or actor who says, ‘I don’t care. It’s so neat to do it this way.’ You have to lose some of those firefights to win the war.”

Despite directors and actors who think grenade pins are pulled with one’s teeth, Dye said he strives for accuracy to “give a salute to all veterans, especially the guys from Vietnam.”

“I try to put a salute to Bob on the skirmish line or Rudy in the rear ranks with a rusty rifle,” he said. “Something that recognizes his experience. Whether he was jamming a truck up Highway 1, pounding a typewriter in Saigon or out in the bush wondering which end is up.”

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Most Authentic

1. “Platoon.” Genuine look at common infantry experience in Vietnam.

2. “Saving Private Ryan.” Long overdue salute to men who went through the meat grinder at Omaha Beach.

3. “Das Boot.” Very realistic look at how the other half (the Navy) lived and fought.

4. “Steel Helmet.” Gene Evans was the quintes-sential combat NCO.

5. “Big Red 1.” Lee Marvin was superb as a two-war retread coping with raw kids.

6. “Patton.” Some of the details went by the board, but George C. Scott was Patton.

Least Authentic

1. “Apocalypse Now.” A great film completely out of touch with the reality of Vietnam.

2. “The Deer Hunter.” Ditto. Special Forces NCOs don’t wear beards.

3. “The Boys of Company C.” Every Vietnam cliche known to man.

4. All of the “Rambos” ex-cept the first one. One man didn’t and couldn’t do it all.

5. All of the “Delta Force” flicks. Ditto.

DALE A. DYE