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Welcome guys to Behind the Shield, my name is James Geering and this is episode 35.

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And my next guest is a man who I actually worked with about 15 years ago in Japan.

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I was hired as a stuntman to do the Terminator 2 show and a white haired gentleman beat the

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crap out of us for three days on an island in Osaka.

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That gentleman was Captain Dale Dye and it wasn't until I discovered who he was that

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I realized how privileged we were out there.

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Captain Dye is the man behind the training of the cast of Platoon, Save and Private Ryan

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and Band of Brothers and he also has been in numerous Hollywood productions himself.

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He was originally a Marine, Captain in the Marine Corps and the interview is incredible.

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We cross everywhere from his actual time in the service through to how he got into Hollywood,

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why he got into Hollywood and some of the stories from these amazing projects and the

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three that I have named are probably my three favorite movies that have anything to do with

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military whatsoever.

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So what I want to do in this intro though before we get into the interview is just reiterate

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a project that he talks about.

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He is going to be crowd sourcing or crowdfunding I think the word is, his latest project No

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Better Place to Die.

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This is the story of the D-Day landing on Normandy and his goal is to use as many veterans

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as he can in the production and he wants to fund it himself so that way he is free from

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some of the restraints of the studio money.

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So after you listen to this incredible interview I want you guys to go to the links that we

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have on the website and delve in and see if there is any way you can help.

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I know we have a lot of people listening that are veterans themselves so really spread the

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word and really help me help Dale share this project.

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He was very very generous with his time on this podcast and I really want to repay the

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favor and help be part of the solution and spread the word and help him with the funding

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of this movie.

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Based on the ones he has been involved with so far this will be the inception of yet another

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incredible military movie that really will pay homage to the guys that truly truly lay

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down their lives for our freedom.

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So that being said I was amazed at this interview.

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It blew my mind that the man that I was sitting in a bar with in Osaka 15 years ago was now

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in the end of the microphone in a completely different capacity and I think that you guys

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are going to love this interview.

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Again share the hell out of it, rate us on iTunes, just let's help get this story out

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and the other episodes are phenomenal as well so any of the ones that you have, the favorite

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episodes please share them but this one specifically I really want people to take the extra time

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and think about anyone and anywhere you can share this and let's help Captain Dai get

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this project off the ground.

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So without further ado I introduce to you Captain Dale Dai.

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Enjoy.

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Welcome Captain Dai to Behind the Shield.

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How are you doing today?

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I'm doing terrific and thanks for having me here.

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I think I'm talking to kindred spirits and that's always a pleasure.

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Obviously you are and I'm going to delve into this later but I can't believe that I'm talking

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to you now 15 years later as a firefighter when I was an actor slash stuntman when we

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last met so it's been a hell of a journey for both of us I'm sure.

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Yeah, you've come a long way.

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It's been interesting.

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Alright so I'm pretty sure I don't need to paint a picture for a lot of people as to

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who you are but I certainly would like to delve into your background a little bit and

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then get to obviously where you got to the military and then further on into your Hollywood

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journey so where were you born and what was your family unit like?

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Well I'm an only child of a mom and dad.

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I grew up in southeast Missouri.

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The way I say that should indicate that it's the southern part of the state and I had a

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fairly good family.

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It got a little fractured.

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We had some drinking problems in the family and as a result I kind of became a little

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I guess I became I was an imaginative kid and I was fascinated by all things military

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or what I perceived to be all things military and as a consequence while my family tried

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to hash out their own personal relations I was sent away to military schools so from

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about the fifth grade through the end of high school I attended military schools primarily

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Missouri Military Academy in the northern part of the state.

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Okay, did you have military family?

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Yes, but they were all nobody was a professional at it.

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They were all World War II guys and they went wherever the draft sent them or wherever they

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volunteered to go and it was fairly common family lash up I get.

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People went to war during World War II or were drafted to go to war during World War

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II and they came home and forgot all about it to the extent that they could and got on

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with their lives.

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So I didn't have anybody that was kind of a touchstone or a figure that said the military

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is a great career that all came from inside me.

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So when you graduated from military school you had your sights set on Annapolis is that

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right?

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I did, yeah.

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I desperately wanted to go to the United States Naval Academy because I just thought that

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was the great stepping stone and I would then become Admiral Dye at some point in my career.

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But I had played too many sports and screwed around too much so my grades weren't sufficient.

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I took the competitive exams and failed them not once but three times and so it became

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clear to me that the Naval Academy didn't need me, thank you very much Dale Dye.

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And so at that point I looked around and said you know what are you going to do here?

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What's going to happen?

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And there wasn't enough money to go to college.

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We were broke from spending everything we had to send me to military schools and there

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weren't a lot of scholarships out there as there is now, not a lot of government money

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or anything like that.

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So you had to work your way through and I just couldn't afford to do anything and it

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was really a low point in my life.

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And this was November, it was the fall of 1963 and in November of that year President

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Kennedy was assassinated.

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Now the link here is that while I was a military school cadet, I was a cadet officer and I

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marched in President Kennedy's inauguration parade in Washington.

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The unit from Missouri Military Academy was brought up to march in the parade.

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I was a member of that unit.

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And I remembered the impact of Kennedy's inaugural speech in which he said among many other things,

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he said, ask not what you can do for your country, ask not what your country can do

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for you, ask what you can do for your country.

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And that had always stuck with me.

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Well, at this low point in the fall of 1963 when I really didn't know what I was going

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to do, there didn't seem to be any options out there, I still had that flag-waving adventure,

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grass is greener on the other side of the hill spirit in me.

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And I thought, you know, maybe President Kennedy, God bless him, was right.

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I should ask what I can do for my country.

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And I was walking down Pine Street in St. Louis, Missouri at one point with snow falling

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and I was cold and miserable and didn't seem to have any future.

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And I saw this poster and it had a picture of a Marine in dress blue uniform and he was

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beautiful.

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He was the rock.

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And I looked at it and the wording said, Marines, are you ready?

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And I said, you know, by God, I think I am.

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So I went in and I didn't look at the Army, I didn't look at the Navy, I didn't look

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at the Air Force, I went right to the Marine recruiter and I said, send me, send me.

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And he signed me up and I was on my way to basic training boot camp in the third day

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of January 1964.

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That's the beginning of it all.

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Wow.

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Yeah, it's funny how that phrase, when the student is ready, the master will appear and

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you know, you're knocking on one career and thinking, that's going to be it.

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And then a moment of clarity hits and you realize that you're on the wrong path all

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along.

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That's very Buddhist of you, Gearing.

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But I think you're right.

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Well, I just wanted to reel back for a second.

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Did you not play an Admiral in Steven Seagal's film Under Siege?

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I did.

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In fact, two of them, the Under Siege and then a sequel, I played a Navy Admiral and

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it, believe me, the irony did not escape me.

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All right.

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So then let me see here.

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So I guess a very important question then.

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So right now you're a raw recruit, so you've spent your life giving boot camps to other

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people, whether it's in the military or then certainly these actors that we'll get to later

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in the podcast.

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But what was your initial experience of your own boot camp?

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Well, Marine boot camp in those days, and this is 1964, the very beginning of 1964, was

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a tough road to hoe.

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Not that it isn't now, but it was different in character.

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It was very physical and very focused.

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And I ate it like pudding.

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I mean, I loved it.

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It reflected on the training that I'd had in military school.

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It provided me a focus and got me out of myself, got me, you know, made me quit crying the

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poor ass and thinking, woe is me.

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And it really gave me something to look for.

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So despite, you know, the depredations of Marine drill instructors, and everybody's

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heard those stories or seen Full Metal Jacket, it was like that.

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I managed to graduate with honors and I chose to go the infantry route.

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I had high scores in various other things relative to the other guys in my platoon and

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my recruit platoon.

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And so I probably could have, you know, gotten electronics technician or communicator or

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something like that.

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That didn't seem the right thing.

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The right thing seemed to be to go to the heart of the Marine Corps, which was the infantry.

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And so I begged and wheedled and got myself assigned there.

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So then I went to Camp Pendleton, California, here on the West Coast, and joined a unit

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to learn to be an 81-millimeter mortarman.

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I did that for about a year, a year and a half, I guess.

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And I frankly became bored.

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I have this really low tolerance for boredom.

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Once I had learned all they expected of a private first class or a Lance Corporal at

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that point, I wanted to do something more.

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I knew there was a huge facet of the Marine Corps in aviation and armor and all the other

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things that the Marine Corps does and does so well.

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And I wanted to see that.

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I wanted to be part of that.

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But I couldn't figure out how to do it.

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And then one day, once again, the master shows up when you need him.

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And I met a guy, a sergeant in the Marine Corps, who was out among us with a camera

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around his neck.

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And he was marching right along with us and humping right along with us and doing everything

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else.

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I looked at him and I said, who the hell are you?

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What do you do?

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And he said, well, I'm a Marine Corps combat correspondent.

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And I said, what's that?

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And he said, look, it is the biggest deal, unknown and hidden, that the Marine Corps

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has.

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And here's why.

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You can do anything in the world that the Marine Corps does on the guise of writing

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a little story and taking a few pictures about it, which will appear and be released to civilian

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media and will appear in Marine Corps publications.

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And you can do anything.

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You can go anywhere as long as you've got that talent to wordsmith, to tell a little

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story.

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Well, I've been, I mean, as a legacy of my father, I've always been a storyteller.

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And I loved the business of communicating and talking to people and seeing their reactions.

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And so I said, you know, I think this may be the answer that I'm looking for.

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And so despite harassment and depredations of various kinds, I managed to change what's

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called my MOS, or my military occupational specialty, and became a Marine Corps combat

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correspondent.

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And the only basis for that, really, was the fact that I had edited my high school newspaper

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when I was in military school.

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That was sufficient in those days in the Marine Corps.

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So I became a Marine Corps combat correspondent, and it really did pay off the way the sergeant

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promised me.

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I was able to go anywhere and practically do anything.

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And I really got a big look.

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I got a macro look at who the Marine Corps is, who Marines are, what the Marine Corps

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is.

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And that was the answer.

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Right then I knew, OK, if I can stay in this groove, and every time I get bored, I can

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jump off and fly in a helicopter.

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I can go over here and shove 105 millimeter howitzer rounds in an artillery piece.

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If I can just stay there, I'm cool.

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And it went that way.

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It was really, really good.

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And then suddenly I got this set of orders that said, at that point, I think sergeant

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die.

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You will report to Marine Forces Western Pacific Fleet Marine Force Pacific.

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And it didn't say, but we all knew where that was, and that was Vietnam.

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And am I right in thinking that you were one of the very first units that was sent over

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there?

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No.

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There was a full division over there at the point I went in, and I joined the next division

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to go in, which was the 1st Marine Division.

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The 3rd Marine Division had already been there, but I joined the 1st Marine Division.

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Right.

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Now, I just wanted to reel back for a second.

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So when you were in boot camp, obviously you saw a smorgasbord of, I guess, mental and

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physical ability.

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You, unlike many periods of the armed services, you actually got to see not just one war,

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but two conflicts.

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At that point, what was your observation of how well your peers had performed in boot

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camp versus how well they performed in actual combat?

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Well, I guess like any recruit training platoon, regardless of the service, you got some winners

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and you got some losers, and the losers are always going to tag a little behind.

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And certainly that was my case.

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I tried to be up among the leaders because that was the best way to survive.

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But I saw in the building of us as Marines, I saw that eternal warrior spirit that says

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and teaches you and preaches that it's not about you, it's about the mission, it's about

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the survival of the unit, and it's about the guy on your left and the guy on your right.

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And I recognized that.

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I saw that bigger picture.

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And when I got to Vietnam, I saw it play out.

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The interesting thing about war or being involved in combat operations is that you can see the

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full gamut of human behavior and human emotions from the absolute worst to the very, very

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best.

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And I observed that and I saw it.

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And I like to think, in fact, I know that the majority of the Marine units I ran with

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had that spirit instilled in them from the time that they graduated from boot camp.

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And it held.

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And it held in the face of enormous adversity in extremis.

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That spark and that spirit, which the drone instructors had instilled, was always still

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there.

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It got shaded here and it got shaded there, but it was always there.

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And the nut-cutting came.

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These guys would get up and go, even at the risk of their lives.

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And I saw that many, many, many times.

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Right.

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I've noticed a common denominator as well.

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I've interviewed Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force.

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And in some of their worst-case stories, often when they've lost brothers out there, it seems

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like almost every single story, they take a moment and say, we were assigned to ex-Marine

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unit and they were some of the most courageous men that we've ever fought alongside.

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Yeah.

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We build them in a strange fashion.

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But what we recognize and what I wish, in many cases, other services would realize is

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that if you can locate and keep hammering, keep teaching that eternal warrior spirit,

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that selflessness, that self-sacrifice, you're going to build people who will tear down walls

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for you, who will run through the walls and get it done.

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And I think that's what the SEALs that you talk to and the Green Berets that you talk

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to and everything else, they recognize that.

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And now I grant you, they call us knuckle-draggers and note-fippers.

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I get that.

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And guilty as charged in some cases.

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The Marine Corps philosophy is primarily, hey, diddle, diddle, right up the middle,

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fix bayonets and the hell with the consequences.

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We have a reputation in that regard.

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It's not true, but it's fun to laugh about.

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And I think that other services, special operators, the high-speed, low-drag guys, they recognize

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that.

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And they recognize that it goes all the way down to Rudy in the rear rank with a rusty

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rifle.

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I mean, it's not just a guy who's volunteered four times and been through all the high-speed

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training in the world.

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In the Marine Corps, it's right down to that guy with a rusty bayonet and not much else

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going on, but he's going to do it.

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And that's the spirit, I think, that I admire so much.

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And what is it in the training?

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What is it in the boot camp and that journey that Marines go through that creates this

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mindset in these men and women?

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You have to educate me for a moment.

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Are there women Marines now?

286
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Yes, there are.

287
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:07,400
Okay, so I want to make sure I cover male and female.

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Okay, so these men and women, male and female Marines, what is it that creates that?

289
00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:16,840
What's that strength and that courage in the mindset?

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I think it's an understanding of an appreciation for our heritage, our legacy, James.

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Unlike many of the other services, we don't just offer a Marine Corps history class.

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We live it.

293
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And we revisit it constantly.

294
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And we demand that Marines study it.

295
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And what that does is it imbues in the individual Marine a sense that he is a link in a long,

296
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long, long chain, and that the worst thing he can do or she can do is to do something

297
00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:03,640
that breaks that chain, that rusts that chain, that diminishes that legacy.

298
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And it really works.

299
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I mean, we carry that.

300
00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:09,880
I carry it to this day.

301
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I carry an awareness that I am the legacy, I am the heritage of Marines who went before

302
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:21,440
me and did fantastic things all the way back to the birth of our nation.

303
00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:27,360
Now, that's not to say that the Navy, the Army, the Air Force didn't do absolutely fantastic

304
00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:28,360
things also.

305
00:22:28,360 --> 00:22:30,140
They did.

306
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But we preach it, live it, and make sure that every Marine is constantly aware of it.

307
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And I think that's really the difference.

308
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Right.

309
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:43,400
I think there's a movement to plant that back into, I mean, the fire service, I can say,

310
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I'm sure, law enforcement as well.

311
00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:51,720
But there are some, you know, very many men and women that have never lost that in the

312
00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:52,720
fire service.

313
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:58,520
But as technology has advanced and politics have come in, that's been threatened a little

314
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bit.

315
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:00,520
And I think it is.

316
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:01,520
It is, James.

317
00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,600
And I don't mean to interrupt you, but I have thought about this.

318
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:05,600
I've thought about this.

319
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:15,880
I've thought about, you know, look, if I am a police officer or a firefighter in St. Louis,

320
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:24,720
Missouri, or in Melbourne, Australia, my heritage and legacy is the ancient volunteer fire services

321
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:35,280
in Melbourne or the Keystone Cops sort of block patrols as a policeman in St. Louis.

322
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:41,720
There is a, and that's fine, and it works in that smaller context, in that community

323
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:43,240
context.

324
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:50,440
What I'm advocating and what I'm admiring is the larger devotion to the nation, not

325
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:55,080
just to the neighborhood in Melbourne or the neighborhood in St. Louis, a larger devotion

326
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:56,600
to the nation.

327
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:04,180
And I think we have diminished firefighters and policemen, firefighters and policemen's

328
00:24:04,180 --> 00:24:06,080
view of that.

329
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:07,080
They become colloquial.

330
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,240
They become localized.

331
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:10,480
That's understandable.

332
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:14,760
Their responsibility is safeguarding that community.

333
00:24:14,760 --> 00:24:15,880
I understand.

334
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,180
But there's a larger heritage.

335
00:24:18,180 --> 00:24:24,280
It's the heritage of every volunteer fireman everywhere in the world who has rushed to

336
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,100
save lives and property.

337
00:24:26,100 --> 00:24:33,260
It's the heritage of every police officer who's run down a wild shooter or a traffic

338
00:24:33,260 --> 00:24:39,440
speeder that's potentially killing lives or taking lives.

339
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:40,840
That are put lives at risk.

340
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,040
I'll get this right in a minute.

341
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:51,480
The point is that I think that larger picture is something we've lost, especially among

342
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:52,720
policemen and firefighters.

343
00:24:52,720 --> 00:25:01,320
I get why, but I think we'd be well served to return to the fact that I'm not only a

344
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:09,840
police officer for Clayton County, Missouri, or I'm not only a firefighter for North Melbourne.

345
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:18,000
I am part of the system, the mechanism that keeps the citizens of the world safe.

346
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,200
This just happens to be my little part of the patch.

347
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:24,800
I think we'd be better to go back to that realization and to preach it and to teach

348
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:25,800
it.

349
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:26,800
Yeah.

350
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,280
And I think that's exactly how I see it.

351
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:34,280
My dad tried to get me to go in the army as a PTI, physical training instructor, back

352
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:35,280
in England.

353
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:39,600
At the time when I was growing up, the Falklands Islands war was happening.

354
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Even to my very young mind, it seemed I couldn't get my head around why so many people died

355
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:49,320
for a rock covered in penguins to simplify it, oversimplify it.

356
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:53,480
Had you been taught correctly, you would have seen that.

357
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:54,480
Yeah.

358
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:55,480
That's the thing.

359
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:58,880
I knew I had a calling and I went through a very winding career path.

360
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,280
I was a lifeguard for a while, which was serving.

361
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:08,160
But then when you and I met, I was in the stunt industry and I found that very unfulfilling.

362
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,320
I was good at it to a point.

363
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,760
I wouldn't say I was a good actor, but the physical stuff, the fighting and everything

364
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:15,320
was good.

365
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:16,320
But I was so unfulfilled.

366
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:19,280
You were always a very good faller.

367
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,280
You fell well.

368
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:25,000
I pride myself on my falling.

369
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:29,760
But when I became a fireman, that was my calling.

370
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,520
I realized that that was what I was supposed to contribute to my nation.

371
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,480
My nation happened to be the US by that point, but I wasn't supposed to be a soldier.

372
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:42,800
I was supposed to be a soldier within the country and protect the men and women against

373
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fire, against car crashes, against all these other things that we mitigate in the fire

374
00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:48,280
service.

375
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:49,640
So I agree 100%.

376
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,040
We are part of this big jigsaw puzzle.

377
00:26:52,040 --> 00:27:00,480
I think that's the same view as how I regard the kind of the political mess is the wrong

378
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:01,480
word.

379
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,000
But the way that people look at politics is they look into this one person at the top

380
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,320
to change the country instead of realizing that they are the ones that can change the

381
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:09,320
country.

382
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:13,120
And if every fireman and policeman in their community does their job well, the country's

383
00:27:13,120 --> 00:27:14,120
going to be great.

384
00:27:14,120 --> 00:27:16,200
And everyone else does their part too.

385
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,440
James, you've almost hit it.

386
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:22,840
And what I'm perceiving, you know, I travel a lot.

387
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,660
I'm all over this nation, all over the world, as a matter of fact.

388
00:27:26,660 --> 00:27:28,160
And here's what I'm perceiving.

389
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:34,100
And all you have to do is open-mindedly watch the news.

390
00:27:34,100 --> 00:27:42,820
And you'll see what I perceive as a public groundswell, a groundswell from the previously

391
00:27:42,820 --> 00:27:47,200
ignored people of this nation and several other nations.

392
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:54,360
England and the United States or UK and the United States are the most obvious and publicized

393
00:27:54,360 --> 00:27:55,360
examples.

394
00:27:55,360 --> 00:28:02,520
But what's happening here is that folks are saying, you know, enough of this crapola,

395
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:03,520
enough of this.

396
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,080
I am the nation.

397
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:07,920
I am the heartland.

398
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:09,920
I am the government.

399
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:16,360
I am the person that our government, regardless of whether it's UK or US, I am the person

400
00:28:16,360 --> 00:28:19,960
that our government is designed to serve.

401
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,720
And I'm going to demand that it serve me.

402
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:24,720
We're seeing that.

403
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:31,160
I think our most recent election in the United States is a classic example of it.

404
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:35,280
And I think what's happening in UK and France right now as a result of recent terrorist

405
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:37,400
attacks is a classic example of that.

406
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,680
People are saying, this is my country, my responsibility.

407
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:45,240
I'm going to stand up and do something about it.

408
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:46,520
And that's marvelous.

409
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:53,360
I think what you're going to see, if I were to predict, and here I am predicting, I think

410
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:59,680
you're going to see a great groundswell of support for police and firemen, first responders

411
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:05,920
of all types, because the nation is saying, look, I get it.

412
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:07,480
These guys are selfless.

413
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:12,620
And it's about time we've got, we appreciate and celebrate a little selflessness.

414
00:29:12,620 --> 00:29:14,960
And you guys are going to be the benefactors of that.

415
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:17,560
Yeah, well, I think it's a double-edged sword as well.

416
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:22,160
And part of my whole reason for doing this podcast is to take care of my fellow first

417
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:23,160
responders.

418
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:28,280
But the other part is to create ownership in the fact that if you are in this role,

419
00:29:28,280 --> 00:29:33,240
you also have to rise to the level of training and expectation that this job requires.

420
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:37,880
So when, excuse my language, but when the shit hits the fan, you sure as hell better

421
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:43,320
be ready to perform whatever duty that you have been recruited to do.

422
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:52,240
Yes indeed, and you know, you know, at least I tried to teach you that there is what really

423
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:56,760
counts in that instance when the shit does hit the fan, or as we say as an officer, when

424
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,280
the defecation hits the oscillation.

425
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:06,040
It's at that moment when training counts less than motivation.

426
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:10,720
Sure you've got to know how to use an OBA and you've got to know to crawl instead of

427
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,480
walk into smoke-filled rooms and so on and so forth.

428
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,360
You have to know all of those things, but that becomes muscle memory.

429
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:22,440
What's really key and crucial in those moments is motivation.

430
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:29,800
I need to do this because it is my duty, not because I get paid to do it.

431
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:31,520
And that's where you've got to go.

432
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:35,440
That's where first responders around the world have to go.

433
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:39,720
It cannot, it must not be just a job.

434
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,960
If it's just a job, you're going to screw it up and people are going to die because

435
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:48,560
you're unwilling to take that risk when the shit hits the fan.

436
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,120
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

437
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:56,320
Well, I want to kind of take that and bring it back to your combat experience.

438
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,920
So obviously one of the problems that we have is fear.

439
00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:04,880
And I'm not talking about pulling up to a raging house fire and being scared to go in,

440
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:08,240
but also just fear of looking in the mirror and realizing that you haven't trained as

441
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:13,680
much as you should and kind of shying away instead of stepping up and saying today is

442
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:14,680
the day.

443
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:19,960
So how did you, again, coming from bootcamp, but not seeing combat, how did you combat

444
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:25,000
the fear when you actually saw combat for the first time and then in your career as

445
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:26,880
well?

446
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:31,520
Fear can be a tool and it should be.

447
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:38,200
I don't know anybody who faces life-threatening situations, whether it's a policeman, a firefighter,

448
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:46,720
a first responder of any sort, or a military man or woman on the battlefield.

449
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:54,400
You realize very quickly that it's way, way too damn easy to die here.

450
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:59,320
And usually you've got reasons to live or you wouldn't be there.

451
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:07,000
And so you learn to use, in my case, you learn to use fear as a tool.

452
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:09,800
You must learn to control it.

453
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:17,960
That takes a certain amount of psychological courage more than it does physical courage.

454
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:22,600
The key is not to let fear own you.

455
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:23,960
You've got to own it.

456
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,960
And if you own it, it becomes a real tool.

457
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,280
It becomes something that teaches you.

458
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:38,000
When you survive a situation where your life is on the line, and certainly this was the

459
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:47,880
case with me, if you're not a complete dumbass, you're going to learn how you did that.

460
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,680
Or you're going to see how other people did it.

461
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:52,560
And you're going to think about it a little bit.

462
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:55,180
At least you should.

463
00:32:55,180 --> 00:33:03,400
And you're going to see that the people that you admired and who did those wonderful things

464
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:11,240
against all odds in combat or in this raging four-story fire or against barricaded hostage

465
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:16,480
situation, you're going to see that those people were afraid, naturally.

466
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,600
They'd be inhuman if they weren't.

467
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,640
But they have managed to conquer it.

468
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,280
They've managed to live with that fear.

469
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:28,560
They've managed to use the fear as a tool.

470
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:35,680
I don't think I've ever met, nor would I want to meet, certainly not fight with, a human

471
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:40,040
being who was completely absent fear.

472
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:45,480
That's unnatural and frankly insane.

473
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:55,920
We're all born with a desire to live and save our lives, and so we all feel fear.

474
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:58,680
But fear needs to be a tool.

475
00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,880
It needs to be something that we learn about ourselves.

476
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:03,940
We learn about life.

477
00:34:03,940 --> 00:34:11,320
We learn about a bigger picture that can mute that fear because we know there is a mission

478
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,760
to be done and it must be done.

479
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:19,120
You must use fear as a tool.

480
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:24,960
And I don't know how this is going to sound, but you must not be afraid of fear.

481
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:25,960
Fear is natural.

482
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,080
Fear is there.

483
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:31,720
The key is you need to be the guy who doesn't show it.

484
00:34:31,720 --> 00:34:38,760
If you can do that, despite feeling it raging throughout your body and screaming for survival,

485
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,400
if you can do that, you will survive and you will learn from that fear.

486
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:46,800
Okay, yeah, that reminds me a lot of boxers or MMA fighters.

487
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:51,440
When you watch them in the ring or in the cage, they're like, how are they so calm?

488
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:52,560
And then you hear interviews after.

489
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:54,520
It's like, well, it's just a pretending game.

490
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:55,520
I'm acting.

491
00:34:55,520 --> 00:35:01,880
I'm actually terrified inside, but it's whoever plays their role best usually out-sikes the

492
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:02,880
opponent.

493
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:10,960
Yeah, I've always said, and I still believe, that professional soldiers are among the world's

494
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:22,400
greatest actors and serving in extremis in wartime is the best acting school there is

495
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,040
if you do it well.

496
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:25,920
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

497
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,200
Now speaking of fear, again, please correct me if I'm wrong.

498
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:30,560
I want to make sure my facts are correct.

499
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:35,440
So you're a recipient of three purple hearts, which means that you were wounded in combat.

500
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,620
The enemy marksman ship badge.

501
00:35:39,620 --> 00:35:44,180
So that obviously means that you returned to combat at least two or three times having

502
00:35:44,180 --> 00:35:47,480
had a near career ending injury.

503
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:51,240
So, let's clarify some points.

504
00:35:51,240 --> 00:35:52,480
Please.

505
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:58,520
You're injured in a car accident or when you fall off a bar stool.

506
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:00,160
In combat, you're wounded.

507
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:01,340
Okay.

508
00:36:01,340 --> 00:36:02,560
And that's an important distinction.

509
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:03,560
All right, go ahead.

510
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:04,560
You may now carry on.

511
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:05,560
Civilian mistake.

512
00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:06,560
I apologize.

513
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:07,560
All right.

514
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:08,560
So you're wounded in combat.

515
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:15,640
My big point I want to make is obviously you're taken away from the battleground for a while.

516
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:21,240
What was it inside you that drove you to get back each time having been wounded in combat?

517
00:36:21,240 --> 00:36:26,040
I think it was, there were two things.

518
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:33,960
There was a personal thing and there was a larger psychological issue, I guess.

519
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:41,280
The personal thing was, look, I'm in the military for the long run.

520
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:43,040
I've got to learn to live with this.

521
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:48,520
I've got to learn to live with being wounded.

522
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:52,120
As the price you pay, it's the cost of doing business.

523
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:56,800
Assuming you don't get a leg blown off or get killed.

524
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:01,000
So you need to get back on that horse that threw you.

525
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:07,840
And I knew that if I didn't do that, fear would conquer me.

526
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,180
And I couldn't have that.

527
00:37:10,180 --> 00:37:15,080
And there was a larger issue, I guess this is the second issue, James, to try to answer

528
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,940
your question.

529
00:37:17,940 --> 00:37:25,280
I knew that there were people out there who needed me, who had relied on me.

530
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:35,920
And the jeopardy that they faced would be worse were I not there or were I to take the

531
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:41,880
opportunity to just say, okay, I'm through, I've been hit, I'm going to go over here and

532
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:46,120
go back to the States and serve at Camp Pendleton or something.

533
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,480
So those were the things that were on my mind.

534
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,760
And I'm awfully glad that I responded that way.

535
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:59,200
Yeah, that ties in very, very directly to kind of what we're fighting at the moment

536
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:03,920
with physical and mental injuries with the PTSD that we're seeing and some first responders

537
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:10,400
is, I think we're fighting a battle, especially with the mental stuff, to get it recognized

538
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,000
by some of these entities that we work for.

539
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:19,000
However, on the flip side, as an individual and the ownership side, I think we need to

540
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:24,160
recognize as first responders that the goal is to take time off, if given the time to

541
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:28,320
recover to here, whether it's a physical traumatic injury or a mental injury.

542
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:32,780
But then the ultimate goal is exactly like you said, to get back out there and stand

543
00:38:32,780 --> 00:38:36,920
alongside your brothers and sisters and perform your duties until you retire.

544
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:41,440
PTSD is too easy.

545
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,600
And it has become an industry.

546
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:46,040
I object to it.

547
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:54,080
I think I certainly grant and admit and have experienced post-traumatic stress.

548
00:38:54,080 --> 00:39:02,360
But I think the strong individual handles it and understands it.

549
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:07,460
And that may take some group therapy or it may take some explaining or understanding,

550
00:39:07,460 --> 00:39:15,500
but we cannot allow it to become the cash cow cop out that it has become right now.

551
00:39:15,500 --> 00:39:23,840
We cannot allow the first police officer who busts a couple of caps at a criminal who's

552
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:30,520
busting caps back at him to suddenly quit and say, you know, I'm now so mentally stressed

553
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:38,080
by the firefight that I was in that I'm going to go on hiatus.

554
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,880
Not sure what it's called in police forces.

555
00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:47,160
And I'm going to get treatment and I'm going to draw my full pay or I'm going to retire

556
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:51,400
immediately because here's an opportunity to do so.

557
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,320
That's not character.

558
00:39:53,320 --> 00:40:01,280
And if there's one solid benefit of a traumatic experience or repetitive traumatic experiences,

559
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,680
it's that it can and should build character.

560
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:05,680
Right.

561
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:06,680
Yeah.

562
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:12,320
And there's definitely a correlation as well between, I think, the mental health of first

563
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:16,880
responders and the shift work and the sleep deprivation they're exposed to as opposed

564
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,920
to predominantly what they see.

565
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:26,040
And I think that there's a term they use now called post-traumatic growth, which is exactly

566
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:27,040
what you're talking about.

567
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,240
They have an incident, they get treatment and they come back stronger than they were

568
00:40:30,240 --> 00:40:32,760
before, the resiliency.

569
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:39,560
Well, you know, people, I can hear your audience screaming right now, easier said than done,

570
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,000
die, easier said than done.

571
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,320
I went through it.

572
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:43,320
I went through it.

573
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:44,600
So I get it.

574
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,600
I am empathetic.

575
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,200
But here's the thing.

576
00:40:51,200 --> 00:41:01,000
If you will fight it, if you will understand it and thereby deal with it effectively, it

577
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,760
will increase your motivation.

578
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:10,200
It will give you an understanding of why you put yourself in that particular situation.

579
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:11,200
And you did.

580
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:12,640
You volunteered to be a firefighter.

581
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:14,040
You volunteered to be a soldier.

582
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,640
You volunteered to be a cop.

583
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:20,600
So those things kind of go with the territory.

584
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:22,480
And you have to understand it.

585
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:24,360
You have to deal with it.

586
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:28,640
And you deal with it by understanding that macro picture motivation.

587
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:29,920
I'm here to help.

588
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:31,760
I'm here to save lives.

589
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:35,820
In short, it ain't about me.

590
00:41:35,820 --> 00:41:43,520
It's about the good of my community, the safety of its citizens, the safety of my nation or

591
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:45,960
the survival of my nation.

592
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:47,360
That's what you've got to do.

593
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:55,680
That's where you've got to go when you're fighting this traumatic experience.

594
00:41:55,680 --> 00:42:03,820
You've got to say, look, this is part and parcel of my chosen lifestyle, my chosen way

595
00:42:03,820 --> 00:42:06,760
of life, my chosen profession.

596
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,140
It is something that happens.

597
00:42:09,140 --> 00:42:13,160
It is something that I can be strong enough to deal with.

598
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:20,800
I must deal with it because the neighborhood, the nation, the county, the state relies on

599
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:22,020
me to do this.

600
00:42:22,020 --> 00:42:23,680
I must not cop out.

601
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,520
I must find that motivation again.

602
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:27,520
That's how you deal with PTSD.

603
00:42:27,520 --> 00:42:28,520
Right.

604
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:32,840
And I want to clarify, not clarify, but focus on one moment when I think it was the last

605
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:36,640
time I saw you actually, we finished the boot camp and we'll talk about that in a little

606
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:38,200
bit.

607
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,520
And we went to a bar, I don't know if you remember, in Osaka, Japan.

608
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:43,360
Me a bar?

609
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:48,480
We may have been a little drunk, but we started talking about, and it was very brief, but

610
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:55,280
we talked, I think I'd asked you, had you taken a life and I'm sure now looking back,

611
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,120
the worst thing you can ask a fireman is what's the worst thing you've ever seen?

612
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:01,640
And I'm sure the worst thing you can ask a soldier is tell me about your experience

613
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:02,640
killing.

614
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:06,320
But I remember you saying that you'd taken one life with a knife.

615
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:11,560
Now I had Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman on the show a few episodes ago.

616
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:12,560
Great guy, Dave.

617
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:13,900
Yeah, that was phenomenal interview.

618
00:43:13,900 --> 00:43:18,800
But one of his things was the most traumatic thing a soldier can do is to take a life at

619
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:20,960
that close combat with a knife.

620
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:21,960
That was the worst.

621
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:28,120
So for you to have done that yourself, I'm just putting you on that.

622
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:34,760
In that place where in his philosophy, in his teachings, that is the most vivid and

623
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:40,640
I guess most mentally traumatic of combat experiences.

624
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,720
And like you said, you managed to get through that.

625
00:43:43,720 --> 00:43:51,800
Yeah, it's, look, when the killing is done at a range where you can smell the other guy's

626
00:43:51,800 --> 00:44:00,240
breath and you see the stark terror in his eyes that is obviously reflected in yours,

627
00:44:00,240 --> 00:44:06,080
as Dave Grossman says, and God bless him, that is a guy who really understands the soldier's

628
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,840
heart, the spirit of the warrior.

629
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:14,800
I've read everything Dave has written and lived by it.

630
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:16,400
He's got wonderful insights.

631
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:23,720
So if you haven't read On Killing and that sort of thing by Dave Grossman, get it and

632
00:44:23,720 --> 00:44:25,480
read it.

633
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:29,960
But he's correct.

634
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:38,120
Those traumas, the experience of having to take a life, look, what I remember most about

635
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:42,260
it was that it didn't bother me at the time.

636
00:44:42,260 --> 00:44:49,320
It bothered me about two days later when I was laying on a poncho looking up through

637
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:54,520
a triple canopy jungle at the stars.

638
00:44:54,520 --> 00:45:00,720
And I don't know exactly what prompted it, but it was at that point I had this huge moral

639
00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:03,060
crisis.

640
00:45:03,060 --> 00:45:10,680
Like a lot of people, I'd grown up in a sort of Judeo-Christian upbringing and the big

641
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:14,040
mortal sin is thou shalt not kill.

642
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:19,960
And when you're involved in shooting at the other guy or fighting with the other guy and

643
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:24,200
he's fighting with you, you can write it off to survival.

644
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:28,480
I had to do that or I would have been dead myself.

645
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:29,960
And that works for a little while.

646
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:39,480
But suddenly the old Sunday school and church teachings start coming back, assuming you've

647
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,640
had Sunday school and church and that sort of thing.

648
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,320
Too many people don't these days.

649
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:53,600
But when you start reflecting on that, you say, oh my God, I am doomed.

650
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:55,360
I have taken another life.

651
00:45:55,360 --> 00:46:03,240
I've committed the most mortal of sins and I'm condemned to hell for when I die.

652
00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:05,640
And that could be tomorrow.

653
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:15,000
So when you get into that area, it is really difficult.

654
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:25,000
That's when your strength of mind, your ability to reason with yourself and not rationalize,

655
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:34,160
just face it and give yourself that solid stern talking to that says, look, wake up,

656
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:35,720
realize what the real world is about.

657
00:46:35,720 --> 00:46:37,680
Here it is.

658
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:40,280
You did this and you had to do it.

659
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,960
And it was you or him.

660
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:46,280
Fortunately for you, it was him.

661
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:47,880
And you've got to learn to live with that.

662
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:51,960
So those were my experiences.

663
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:53,600
And I was able to fight my way through it.

664
00:46:53,600 --> 00:47:00,000
I was able to rationalize sufficiently for mental stability what had happened.

665
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:01,000
Yeah.

666
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:05,040
I mean, obviously as a fireman, I have no concept of what that was like.

667
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:10,600
But it kind of struck me again right before I was getting ready to interview you that

668
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,360
that whole conversation just kind of sprung back in my mind.

669
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:19,480
And it's funny 15 years later, I get to ask you about it again from a totally different

670
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:20,480
angle.

671
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:21,840
Well, it's funny with firefighters.

672
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:30,960
You know, I've spoken with a number of them, especially here in Los Angeles and Chicago

673
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,600
and Detroit and other big city areas.

674
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:38,520
And a lot of those guys, I don't know whether I should say this or not, and I'm not going

675
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:42,720
to name any names, but they go armed.

676
00:47:42,720 --> 00:47:46,240
And they have to because when they're responding to the fire and so on and so forth, they'll

677
00:47:46,240 --> 00:47:50,240
have gang members and, you know, bangers and so on and so forth.

678
00:47:50,240 --> 00:47:53,080
People try to take them down.

679
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:58,440
And I've always thought that was an interesting and little known aspect of big city firefighting.

680
00:47:58,440 --> 00:47:59,440
Yeah.

681
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:04,840
Well, another experience I've had as a fireman, I've worked in some pretty awful areas in

682
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:10,200
the West Coast and the East Coast, is that there's that threat of that, especially in

683
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:11,200
initiations.

684
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:14,560
You know, you kill a fireman and you get into the gang.

685
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:23,280
But the other side is certainly outside the gangs, is some of the most desperate people

686
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,880
in society, whether it's prostitutes or drug dealers or whatever.

687
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,520
Obviously, they're terrified of the police.

688
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:36,480
But when you roll down, especially in a rescue, like an ambulance that we ride in, you're

689
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:38,240
the only hope they've got.

690
00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:42,360
So when you show up on scene, anyone else on the planet, they'd probably be robbing

691
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:48,480
or killing, but to you, we're the ones that are going to be saving them if it hits the

692
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:49,480
fan.

693
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:51,640
So it's a very weird experience.

694
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:53,480
You're talking about rational people there.

695
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:56,480
I'm not.

696
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:57,640
But I get it.

697
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:00,680
And you're the firefighter and I stand instructed.

698
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:05,080
Yeah, no, but I'm saying, but the guys in some of the other cities is probably a very

699
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:06,080
different experience.

700
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:11,840
I know in Anaheim, in California, when I worked there, you're scraping up 14, 15 year old

701
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:16,880
kids that have been shot in a park and there's no sense in protecting some apartment complex

702
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:19,000
that their parents rented that month.

703
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:22,080
I mean, there's no rational thinking behind that at all.

704
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:23,080
I get it.

705
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:24,080
So, all right.

706
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:29,440
Well, I want to make sure that we touch the second part of your career, which is obviously

707
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:31,840
how you got into Hollywood.

708
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:38,640
So what was it that made you want to finally retire from the military?

709
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:43,480
And then secondly, obviously, what was it that what was your goal for for trying to

710
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,040
get into Hollywood?

711
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:52,840
Well, look, I had been in Beirut, Lebanon, with the Marine Corps in 1982 and 83.

712
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:58,480
I was a captain at that point, having done 13 years enlisted and then gone to officer

713
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:01,880
candidate school.

714
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:08,640
And I could see the situation in Beirut by early 1983.

715
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:09,640
I could see it developing.

716
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:15,320
And I knew that if we didn't take a hand in this, if we didn't get rid of the political

717
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:20,880
considerations that were being put on by the State Department, some people were going to

718
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:21,880
get killed.

719
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,560
I mean, the shooting was already starting.

720
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:32,120
And so I left Beirut, I guess, in the summer of 83, and by the fall of 83, there was a

721
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:40,020
bombing that killed 250-some Marines.

722
00:50:40,020 --> 00:50:42,320
And that really kind of broke my heart.

723
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:49,160
It kind of broke my warrior spirit for the time, despite adversity, despite my own combat

724
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:53,080
experiences, because I viewed it as unnecessary.

725
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:59,560
We shouldn't have been put in a situation and then had our hands tied and been restricted.

726
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:01,480
So I was really down.

727
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:06,720
I was really brokenhearted, because so many of those guys who died were good friends of

728
00:51:06,720 --> 00:51:08,600
mine.

729
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:14,060
And I just saw it as we got betrayed.

730
00:51:14,060 --> 00:51:20,940
We let the politicians direct what we should do on the battlefield, and that was deadly.

731
00:51:20,940 --> 00:51:27,160
And of course, it had deadly consequences in October of 1983.

732
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:35,400
So I began to think, you know, maybe I'm not the guy I started out to be.

733
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:40,220
Maybe I'm not the guy who can wave his hand and say, follow me, Marines, it is necessary

734
00:51:40,220 --> 00:51:42,660
for us to die.

735
00:51:42,660 --> 00:51:45,040
That's who I'd always seen myself as.

736
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,920
And that kind of took some wind out of my sails.

737
00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:52,360
And so I started to look around for something to do.

738
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,840
I had enough time in to retire.

739
00:51:55,840 --> 00:52:02,440
And so I decided to do that, and I got a job with a publication called Soldier of Fortune

740
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:08,960
magazine, which supposedly was going to capitalize on my journalistic abilities.

741
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:17,520
But in actuality, what it turned out to be was going into Central America and training

742
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:27,120
the contra-revolutionary forces in El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica.

743
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:32,560
And so I was essentially back in uniform, if you will, and I was down there training

744
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:34,400
guerrilla forces.

745
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:41,080
And then along came Iran-Contra, and what we were doing kind of on the QT down there

746
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:46,440
suddenly became very public and pissed off Congress no end.

747
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:49,500
And so that work kind of fell out.

748
00:52:49,500 --> 00:52:51,280
And I was really at a loss.

749
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:59,840
I mean, I had formally retired, didn't know what to do, and I really began to kind of

750
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:01,360
do a period of self-examination.

751
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:04,240
You know, what can I bring to the table?

752
00:53:04,240 --> 00:53:10,200
I mean, I've been shot too many times to want to be a cop on America's main streets.

753
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:17,200
If I became a corporate cubicle rat, you know, I would have ended up on a bar stool or killed

754
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:18,680
myself in six months.

755
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:19,680
Me too.

756
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:20,680
Yeah.

757
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:22,480
Well, you know the drill.

758
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:26,000
And I couldn't stand the thought of being a defense contractor.

759
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:29,360
I'd seen the inside of that mess before.

760
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:37,960
And so I really needed to find something that would reward me, appeal to my creative side,

761
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:41,380
and allow me to, you know, make a little money and pay the bills.

762
00:53:41,380 --> 00:53:48,480
And so I suddenly glommed onto the thought that, you know, I had been a movie fan all

763
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:50,520
my life.

764
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:54,200
I'd seen every military movie there was, I think, at that point.

765
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:58,880
And the common denominator was there that most of them pissed me off.

766
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:06,120
They just didn't reflect who we are, how we behave, how we talk, how we walk.

767
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:10,480
There were terrible, what I thought was misrepresentations.

768
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:15,920
Are you saying that John Wayne didn't capture the soldier's life?

769
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:17,960
No, John Wayne is always perfect.

770
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,360
I'm not talking about him.

771
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:24,840
I'm talking about the scripts he had to act.

772
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:29,040
In other words, the writers and the producers and the directors didn't get it.

773
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:31,200
And certainly the actors didn't get it.

774
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:32,240
And I began to wonder why.

775
00:54:32,240 --> 00:54:37,920
So I just on a whim, really, I came out here to LA and I began to try to talk to people.

776
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:44,160
I began to try to find people, you know, on movie lot and started trying to circulate

777
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:45,160
and say, do you work in movies?

778
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:46,160
Tell me about it.

779
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:53,980
You know, and what I discovered was for years before I ever came on the scene, Hollywood

780
00:54:53,980 --> 00:54:56,200
had had what they called technical advisors.

781
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,320
And I'm making little air quotes here.

782
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:03,240
And this was some guy, you know, usually who had done six months in the California National

783
00:55:03,240 --> 00:55:07,520
Guard and he was the director's brother-in-law.

784
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:11,560
And they'd pay him $500 and sit him in a chair and wake him up whenever they wanted to know

785
00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:15,920
which side the ribbons went on on his uniform.

786
00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:17,920
But there was very little attempt.

787
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:24,920
I mean, those guys did an admirable job for what they were allowed to do, which is to,

788
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:28,320
you know, teach you how to wear the uniform, teach you how to carry and fire the weapon,

789
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:29,920
how to load it.

790
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,440
And that's fine.

791
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:35,640
But it is so superficial, so shallow.

792
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:41,840
What I thought was missing and what I was convinced was missing after a little investigation

793
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:49,320
was some way to train those actors and teach those producers and teach those directors

794
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:55,080
that what soldiers are really like and what they really do and how they really relate

795
00:55:55,080 --> 00:56:00,560
to each other is more dramatic than anything someone who's never been in uniform can dream

796
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:02,080
up.

797
00:56:02,080 --> 00:56:03,640
And so that was my pitch.

798
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:11,240
I said, look, what I want to do is take these actors and I want to immerse them in the world

799
00:56:11,240 --> 00:56:15,240
of a combat soldier for as long as you'll let me.

800
00:56:15,240 --> 00:56:20,040
And my promise is when I bring them down, they will understand the military.

801
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:22,340
They will understand the soldiers.

802
00:56:22,340 --> 00:56:28,680
They will understand the emotions and the psychology and the relationships that form.

803
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:30,980
That was a tough sell.

804
00:56:30,980 --> 00:56:35,720
You know, people told me, well, look, we've been making military movies for decades and,

805
00:56:35,720 --> 00:56:39,720
you know, we don't need some clown like you coming in and telling us we're doing it all

806
00:56:39,720 --> 00:56:40,720
wrong.

807
00:56:40,720 --> 00:56:43,120
We've made zillions of dollars on these things.

808
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:44,120
Yeah.

809
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:46,400
But there was a way to do it better.

810
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:48,800
And there was a way to support my agenda.

811
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:58,000
My agenda was very simple to shine some long overdue and very much deserved light on the

812
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,880
men and women who wear our military uniform and what they do.

813
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:04,420
And so that was my agenda.

814
00:57:04,420 --> 00:57:09,120
And I thought that, you know, given that we're a media saturated society and we're all nuts

815
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:14,760
over video and that sort of thing, it would be nice if I could get them to read history

816
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:15,760
books that say that.

817
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:18,000
But that's not going to happen.

818
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:19,520
So I took the mountain to Mohammed.

819
00:57:19,520 --> 00:57:26,560
I said, I will I will go into the popular media and teach this and attempt to demonstrate

820
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:29,300
this very hard sell.

821
00:57:29,300 --> 00:57:31,520
But I finally met a guy.

822
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:39,040
Well, actually, I found a guy who was going to do a movie about Vietnam based on his

823
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:41,960
own experiences as a combat infantryman in Vietnam.

824
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:45,840
Well, that was a rare bird in Hollywood, believe me.

825
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:47,740
And his name was Oliver Stone.

826
00:57:47,740 --> 00:57:52,040
And I was able to get to him and do this pitch that I'm doing to you.

827
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:59,280
Tell him why I thought so many military movies, so many war movies didn't get to the heart

828
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:03,080
of the issue, didn't get to the heart of the matter.

829
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:08,640
Fortunately, based on his own personal experience, he understood it.

830
00:58:08,640 --> 00:58:10,920
He said, you know, I think you're right.

831
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:18,040
And so he allowed me to take 33 actors, including some who are big names now and weren't then

832
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:25,440
Tom Berger, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Depp, take them all into a Charlie

833
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:30,900
Sheen, take them all into the jungles of the Philippines, the Philippine Mountains south

834
00:58:30,900 --> 00:58:40,840
of Manoa and make them live for three weeks like Oliver and I lived as young 19 and 20

835
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:44,680
year olds in Vietnam.

836
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:46,480
It worked magically.

837
00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:50,960
What I discovered was every evening I would have a stand down and this would be the time

838
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:53,940
when they could ask me questions.

839
00:58:53,940 --> 00:59:02,280
And I was able to teach essentially philosophy, teach psychology, teach emotion, redefine

840
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:04,360
love.

841
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:08,240
And those things were what they what they really ate.

842
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:10,320
They ate it like breakfast pastry.

843
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:13,120
I mean, they got this stuff.

844
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:17,880
And when we brought them down out of the out of the mountains and we began to shoot this

845
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:24,840
little five million dollar picture, that's all we had called Platoon, it was I knew we

846
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,140
had caught lightning in a bottle.

847
00:59:27,140 --> 00:59:31,880
And when we brought it home, it won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director

848
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:34,320
from Olive for Oliver.

849
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:40,440
And he was kind enough at the Academy Awards to credit me with with much of the success

850
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:41,880
of the film.

851
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:44,880
And that was the real launch point of my career.

852
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:53,120
Yeah, anyone that's watched Platoon can can see with this the tension between Willem Dafoe

853
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:59,280
and Tom Berenger and their characters and then just the thousand yard stare and the

854
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:03,960
senselessness of so many of the combat scenes that it was completely different than any

855
01:00:03,960 --> 01:00:05,880
war movie that certainly that I'd ever seen.

856
01:00:05,880 --> 01:00:07,760
I was still somewhat young then.

857
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:10,040
But that's because the actors understood it.

858
01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:11,920
Yeah, and weren't just mimicking.

859
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:12,920
They understood it.

860
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:15,040
No, and you could see that, absolutely.

861
01:00:15,040 --> 01:00:21,320
And I think that that really just redefined what a war movie should be.

862
01:00:21,320 --> 01:00:26,800
And I think you truly set the new baseline for everything that was made after that.

863
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:31,760
Well, I hope that's true, James.

864
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:37,700
I did some press interviews and I do them way too often, including this one.

865
01:00:37,700 --> 01:00:49,080
But a writer here in L.A. said that Captain Dale Die literally changed the way Hollywood

866
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:51,280
makes war movies.

867
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:54,240
And I thought, well, if that's true, that'd be a great epitaph.

868
01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:56,280
I'd be happy to have that on my gravestone.

869
01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:57,280
Yeah, well, it's true.

870
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:01,320
I mean, if you ask me and I didn't know we'd never worked together and I didn't know you

871
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:06,040
were attached to any of these movies and you asked me name your three favorite war movies,

872
01:01:06,040 --> 01:01:10,600
I'd tell you right now it'd be Platoon, Band of Brothers is a TV series, and then Saving

873
01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:11,600
Private Ryan.

874
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:14,600
And you obviously were integral in all three of those productions.

875
01:01:14,600 --> 01:01:15,600
I was.

876
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:17,440
I was very fortunate.

877
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:24,480
The neat thing is people like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and Bob Zemeckis and a number

878
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:29,120
of other great directors that I've worked with and who really taught me filmmaking,

879
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,960
some of the most creative people in the world.

880
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:38,640
They understood what I was trying to do and they realized its value.

881
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:42,000
So I've been exceedingly fortunate in that regard.

882
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:43,000
Yeah.

883
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:44,440
Now I played a firefighter once.

884
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:45,440
Oh, did you?

885
01:01:45,440 --> 01:01:46,760
Which project was that?

886
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:49,320
Film, Steven Spielberg film called Always.

887
01:01:49,320 --> 01:01:52,960
Oh, I was I was the fire boss.

888
01:01:52,960 --> 01:01:58,680
And I never again want to wear fire gel and run through butane flames again.

889
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:00,240
But that's what I did.

890
01:02:00,240 --> 01:02:01,500
There you go.

891
01:02:01,500 --> 01:02:02,880
So I want to ask you about that.

892
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:07,840
So when you first came out of the military, obviously my experience with you was I was

893
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:10,840
at that point a civilian stuntman.

894
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:18,000
I think most of our cast was stunt performers and then we had some straight actors as well.

895
01:02:18,000 --> 01:02:25,680
What was it like coming from working with soldiers to working with actors, which no

896
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:30,520
offense to my actor friends, I got many of them, but they're kind of a polar opposite.

897
01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:34,800
You know, fundamentally, one wants the world to watch them and the other is putting their

898
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:37,040
life on the line for the world.

899
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:38,240
Yeah.

900
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:47,480
And I quickly realized that and I quickly realized the way to actors grow up in the

901
01:02:47,480 --> 01:02:50,960
antithesis of how professional soldiers grow up.

902
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:54,680
I mean, actors think they're focused entirely on themselves.

903
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:57,240
They have to be.

904
01:02:57,240 --> 01:03:01,480
The world, you know, the sun rises and sets on their ass.

905
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:05,560
And it's all about me, me, me and how many lines have I got and how's my hair.

906
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:10,280
Well, that's the antithesis of how a professional soldier looks at things.

907
01:03:10,280 --> 01:03:13,920
What he thinks about are the mission, the survival of the unit and the survival of the

908
01:03:13,920 --> 01:03:15,120
guys on the left.

909
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:18,640
The last thing he thinks about is himself.

910
01:03:18,640 --> 01:03:25,420
And so that was really a dichotomy and I had to teach it and I had to more importantly,

911
01:03:25,420 --> 01:03:30,800
and this is the reason my full immersion method works, I had to demonstrate it so that they

912
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:33,440
could see the difference.

913
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:37,800
And actors are kind of like dry sponges, you know.

914
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:43,360
You pour on the good stuff and they swell and they grow because they want to, especially

915
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:45,960
the good ones.

916
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:51,320
And so what I developed was, and anybody who's ever been in basic training or firefighter

917
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:58,160
training or a police academy knows what I'm talking about here, I began with PT, physical

918
01:03:58,160 --> 01:03:59,160
training.

919
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:03,040
I wore their asses out.

920
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:10,520
And the reason I did that was to reduce them to a low common denominator so that everybody

921
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:11,520
was the same.

922
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:13,840
Nobody's special.

923
01:04:13,840 --> 01:04:19,160
Everybody's going through the same pain, the same amount of sweat, the same amount of exertion

924
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:20,920
and effort.

925
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:26,280
And that takes a little bit of the wind out of their sails.

926
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:28,680
Suddenly they realize they're nobody special at all.

927
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:32,440
All they've got to do is find out how to, you know, find an effective way to avoid that

928
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:34,040
white haired bastard.

929
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:39,800
You know, I mean, that's, and once I've got them there, once I've got them listening and

930
01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:46,280
paying attention and not thinking about themselves, then I can start to teach.

931
01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:54,080
And what I found was the really good actors, the really dedicated actors ate it like candy.

932
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:55,080
They loved it.

933
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:56,360
They loved the experience.

934
01:04:56,360 --> 01:04:57,960
They saw it as a learning experience.

935
01:04:57,960 --> 01:04:59,800
It opened their eyes.

936
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:06,240
It gave them psychological and emotional insights, which are the tools they use in acting.

937
01:05:06,240 --> 01:05:08,320
And they were great.

938
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:11,980
And I guess we've trained about 800 of them now.

939
01:05:11,980 --> 01:05:17,920
The only, the downside is that occasionally you run into actors who aren't in it for the

940
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:18,920
art.

941
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:22,600
They aren't in it to be storytellers and to be communicators.

942
01:05:22,600 --> 01:05:24,760
They're in it to be stars.

943
01:05:24,760 --> 01:05:27,560
And those guys are a waste of time and space.

944
01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:31,120
I can't train them because they'll lie to me.

945
01:05:31,120 --> 01:05:36,320
And nothing I tell them will last more than the time it takes to listen.

946
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:41,460
Fortunately, there have been many, many fewer of those than there have been the serious

947
01:05:41,460 --> 01:05:45,080
guys and gals who've listened and paid attention and learned.

948
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:46,080
Right.

949
01:05:46,080 --> 01:05:47,080
Yeah.

950
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:49,880
I know, I mean, your whole platoon cast is phenomenal, but one that really stands out

951
01:05:49,880 --> 01:05:51,080
to me is Johnny Depp.

952
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:54,520
Because if you want to, you want to talk about, I mean, you say about this yourself, you're

953
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:57,460
hired by Hollywood to be kind of to be Dale Die.

954
01:05:57,460 --> 01:06:01,760
And then you have Johnny Depp, who's this chameleon that can be anything that's asked

955
01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:02,760
of him.

956
01:06:02,760 --> 01:06:03,760
Yeah.

957
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:04,760
Yeah.

958
01:06:04,760 --> 01:06:05,760
He's, he's, he's pretty interesting.

959
01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:08,880
He's a little, he's a little mimic.

960
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:17,880
And, and he gets these things and he's got the courage to try them and show them on screen.

961
01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:20,680
And he does it from such an intelligent place.

962
01:06:20,680 --> 01:06:25,920
He's, he's a very, very smart guy.

963
01:06:25,920 --> 01:06:29,720
And he was one of the ones who really got what I was trying to teach when I had him

964
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:31,720
in the jungle in the Philippines.

965
01:06:31,720 --> 01:06:32,720
Yeah.

966
01:06:32,720 --> 01:06:36,920
That's a funny, I guess, loop around.

967
01:06:36,920 --> 01:06:41,840
One of my fellow cast members in Terminator, and just for the people listening, where I

968
01:06:41,840 --> 01:06:46,600
worked with Captain Die was the Terminator 2 stunt show in Universal Studios.

969
01:06:46,600 --> 01:06:51,840
We opened one in Japan and Captain Die put us through a short, I would say probably pretty

970
01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:54,240
gentle version of his boot camp.

971
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:58,720
But one of my fellow stuntmen, Damian Bryson, just doubled Johnny Depp for Pirates of the

972
01:06:58,720 --> 01:07:00,840
Caribbean, this last movie he did.

973
01:07:00,840 --> 01:07:02,520
Yeah, Damian, it's a great guy.

974
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:04,040
I remember, I remember all of you very well.

975
01:07:04,040 --> 01:07:16,000
We did T2 3D themed entertainment where we taught the cast in Orlando, here in Hollywood,

976
01:07:16,000 --> 01:07:18,680
and then in Osaka, Japan, which is the one you were involved in.

977
01:07:18,680 --> 01:07:19,680
Yeah.

978
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:23,720
And your wife, Julia, was our director for the whole show.

979
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:24,720
She's the real drill instructor.

980
01:07:24,720 --> 01:07:25,720
Yeah.

981
01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:27,440
And I want to just talk about it very quickly.

982
01:07:27,440 --> 01:07:29,800
I meant to put this earlier in the conversation.

983
01:07:29,800 --> 01:07:36,400
But when I had Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman at the end of the interview, I asked him if

984
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:41,880
he recommended a book and one of his books that he recommended was Backbone by Your Wife.

985
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:47,600
Yeah, Julia, Julia worked enormously hard on that book.

986
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:53,840
And it is really, really an inside look at small unit leadership.

987
01:07:53,840 --> 01:07:56,660
She stayed away from the officers and all that.

988
01:07:56,660 --> 01:08:03,360
She went to corporals and Lance corporals and young sergeants and said, look, tell me about

989
01:08:03,360 --> 01:08:04,360
leadership.

990
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:09,160
Give me some examples of what you did in the sandbox or on other deployments or back in

991
01:08:09,160 --> 01:08:16,760
the States and how you became successful and how you view leading other people.

992
01:08:16,760 --> 01:08:20,600
And they were just so anxious to talk to her about this.

993
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:22,440
It was not something they had ignored.

994
01:08:22,440 --> 01:08:23,960
This was something they lived with.

995
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:27,320
This is something they paid attention to.

996
01:08:27,320 --> 01:08:33,760
And they were so glad to talk to Julia because she was asking the low level, not even middle

997
01:08:33,760 --> 01:08:34,760
managers.

998
01:08:34,760 --> 01:08:35,760
These weren't senior NCOs.

999
01:08:35,760 --> 01:08:40,880
These were the young NCOs, noncommissioned officers, who get it done, who do it from

1000
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:46,840
day to day and who face all of those personal problems, personnel problems and leadership

1001
01:08:46,840 --> 01:08:47,840
problems.

1002
01:08:47,840 --> 01:08:51,160
And she came out with just a magic book.

1003
01:08:51,160 --> 01:08:52,160
Dave's a fan of it.

1004
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:53,160
I'm a fan of it.

1005
01:08:53,160 --> 01:08:54,160
And it's called Backbone.

1006
01:08:54,160 --> 01:08:55,160
Yeah.

1007
01:08:55,160 --> 01:08:56,160
Well, I'll just reiterate that.

1008
01:08:56,160 --> 01:09:00,400
That's two episodes now that Backbone has been mentioned and I will definitely put it

1009
01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:02,240
on the show notes again.

1010
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:05,640
But I haven't read it yet, but I will be reading it 100%.

1011
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:08,920
As a firefighter, I haven't risen through the ranks because I keep moving departments

1012
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:11,040
like a gypsy.

1013
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:12,900
But I'm embedded now.

1014
01:09:12,900 --> 01:09:18,320
But I am one of those low level, and I don't mean that in a drugtree way, but I'm a fireman.

1015
01:09:18,320 --> 01:09:19,880
I'm not an officer at the moment.

1016
01:09:19,880 --> 01:09:23,160
But I like to think of myself as a leader in some respects as well.

1017
01:09:23,160 --> 01:09:27,520
So I think that would probably pertain to guys that haven't got a bunch of bugles on

1018
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:31,160
their shirt yet that want to drive their department home.

1019
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:32,160
Absolutely.

1020
01:09:32,160 --> 01:09:39,640
And you read it and if you pay attention, you'll pick up these little gems of low level

1021
01:09:39,640 --> 01:09:41,980
leadership that just work magic.

1022
01:09:41,980 --> 01:09:43,640
So read it.

1023
01:09:43,640 --> 01:09:44,640
Hurry up.

1024
01:09:44,640 --> 01:09:45,640
Yes, sir.

1025
01:09:45,640 --> 01:09:46,640
All right.

1026
01:09:46,640 --> 01:09:52,920
Okay, so I want to come back to Platoon just for a second.

1027
01:09:52,920 --> 01:10:00,320
Was there any kind of moments of being uncomfortable with what seems like the realism of the set

1028
01:10:00,320 --> 01:10:03,540
and the explosions that you guys had set?

1029
01:10:03,540 --> 01:10:06,640
Did that take you back to Vietnam at all when you were filming?

1030
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:08,000
Yeah, it did.

1031
01:10:08,000 --> 01:10:13,120
I mean, there were moments where both Oliver and I, because we were the two actual combat

1032
01:10:13,120 --> 01:10:16,400
veterans on the set.

1033
01:10:16,400 --> 01:10:26,360
There were moments I can remember in the village scene where Lieutenant Wolfe and, or rather,

1034
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:32,360
Sergeant Barnes and Sergeant Elias get in a fight.

1035
01:10:32,360 --> 01:10:36,500
The casting people had gone down to Manila.

1036
01:10:36,500 --> 01:10:38,460
We shot everything in the Philippines.

1037
01:10:38,460 --> 01:10:44,960
Had gone down to Manila and gotten real Vietnamese who had come into the Philippines as refugees

1038
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:52,160
after Saigon fell, and cast them and brought them up to be the villagers.

1039
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:53,600
They were right at home.

1040
01:10:53,600 --> 01:10:55,240
They knew all about this.

1041
01:10:55,240 --> 01:10:59,640
I remember we were trying to move them around and put them where they needed to be, and

1042
01:10:59,640 --> 01:11:04,480
they were gambling in Vietnamese, which is a very tonal language.

1043
01:11:04,480 --> 01:11:10,020
And Oliver and I, I mean, the hair just stood up on the back of my neck, and I looked at

1044
01:11:10,020 --> 01:11:15,540
Oliver and he looked at me, and we just stopped, and we walked off of the set, went over and

1045
01:11:15,540 --> 01:11:18,560
sat down on a rice paddy dike.

1046
01:11:18,560 --> 01:11:19,560
Didn't say anything.

1047
01:11:19,560 --> 01:11:20,560
We didn't have to.

1048
01:11:20,560 --> 01:11:21,800
We knew what it was.

1049
01:11:21,800 --> 01:11:26,540
All of that, just hearing that language, being surrounded by that language, just brought

1050
01:11:26,540 --> 01:11:29,000
it all back to us.

1051
01:11:29,000 --> 01:11:31,000
There were a lot of moments like that.

1052
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:38,500
I can remember we were shooting a night scene, a night ambush, and the idea was that we had

1053
01:11:38,500 --> 01:11:45,320
fog in there, which frequently you see in triple canopy jungle, and two North Vietnamese

1054
01:11:45,320 --> 01:11:48,280
Army soldiers were to merge out of that fog.

1055
01:11:48,280 --> 01:11:55,480
Well, I'd been working 16, 18-hour days, and I was pretty exhausted, but I was sitting

1056
01:11:55,480 --> 01:12:02,180
right next to the camera, and I had an M16 rifle loaded with blanks between my knees,

1057
01:12:02,180 --> 01:12:06,340
because sometimes Oliver would want me to add off-camera fire to juice the scene and

1058
01:12:06,340 --> 01:12:08,400
juice the emotions.

1059
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:17,360
And I went to sleep with my head leaning on the flash suppressor of the M16, and the

1060
01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:24,600
scene began to roll, and I heard action, and I looked up, and as I looked up, I saw these

1061
01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:31,640
two actors playing North Vietnamese Army soldiers coming out of that fog, and I panicked.

1062
01:12:31,640 --> 01:12:37,700
I threw the rifle up into my shoulder, and Oliver reached over and grabbed it and pushed

1063
01:12:37,700 --> 01:12:42,040
it down so that I didn't disturb the scene, but I was right back.

1064
01:12:42,040 --> 01:12:45,320
I was going to open up on those guys.

1065
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:50,080
So yeah, there were moments throughout filming when stuff like that happened.

1066
01:12:50,080 --> 01:12:53,500
Yeah, and you played Captain Harris in the movie as well?

1067
01:12:53,500 --> 01:13:00,240
I did, the heroic and very handsome company commander by the name of Captain Harris, and

1068
01:13:00,240 --> 01:13:01,960
that was really by accident.

1069
01:13:01,960 --> 01:13:07,140
Oliver had seen me teaching, and he said, you know, you're perfect for this.

1070
01:13:07,140 --> 01:13:10,840
Just get in there and do what you do.

1071
01:13:10,840 --> 01:13:13,720
And I did, and I was very fortunate.

1072
01:13:13,720 --> 01:13:20,240
The critics, who were all over Platoon, obviously, as we began to gain momentum and attention,

1073
01:13:20,240 --> 01:13:27,480
had some very nice things to say about me and what I had brought to the scenes of the

1074
01:13:27,480 --> 01:13:30,920
movie in which I played.

1075
01:13:30,920 --> 01:13:37,720
And that kind of gave a huge boost to what was, at that point, whether I wanted it or

1076
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:40,080
not, a burgeoning acting career.

1077
01:13:40,080 --> 01:13:44,500
Yeah, it's funny, actually, I ended up working with Oliver Stone myself and in a totally

1078
01:13:44,500 --> 01:13:45,500
different capacity.

1079
01:13:45,500 --> 01:13:46,720
I wasn't side by side with him.

1080
01:13:46,720 --> 01:13:49,240
I was just a glorified extra.

1081
01:13:49,240 --> 01:13:54,640
They hired a bunch of real firefighters in LA to work on the World Trade Center movie

1082
01:13:54,640 --> 01:13:58,640
about the Port Authority guys that actually survived the collapse.

1083
01:13:58,640 --> 01:14:00,600
So yeah, that was interesting.

1084
01:14:00,600 --> 01:14:03,440
I hadn't really worked on a high budget movie before.

1085
01:14:03,440 --> 01:14:06,840
I'd done some TV and lots of live stunt shows.

1086
01:14:06,840 --> 01:14:11,600
But yeah, I got to work with him very briefly.

1087
01:14:11,600 --> 01:14:12,600
Visionary filmmaker.

1088
01:14:12,600 --> 01:14:13,600
Yeah, he really is.

1089
01:14:13,600 --> 01:14:16,680
I can't say I ever agree with him politically.

1090
01:14:16,680 --> 01:14:23,160
In fact, on the set, they used to call me John Wayne and him Ho Chi Minh.

1091
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:26,760
But he's a visionary filmmaker, and he taught me a lot and gave me huge breaks.

1092
01:14:26,760 --> 01:14:28,840
I'll always be grateful for that.

1093
01:14:28,840 --> 01:14:29,840
Right.

1094
01:14:29,840 --> 01:14:35,280
So I want to go on to maybe not your next movie, but the next the big one.

1095
01:14:35,280 --> 01:14:39,680
I know there's a great story and I'd love to hear it from actually from you, but the

1096
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:46,460
story of how you conducted the boot camp for Saving Private Ryan and how you, correct me

1097
01:14:46,460 --> 01:14:48,840
if I'm wrong, this is the story that's been told.

1098
01:14:48,840 --> 01:14:53,160
You kept the one group together and then Matt Damon came in later.

1099
01:14:53,160 --> 01:14:54,160
Is that correct?

1100
01:14:54,160 --> 01:14:57,120
Yeah, it is.

1101
01:14:57,120 --> 01:15:10,360
We made a decision, not to include Matt Damon, who played Private Ryan, in the training that

1102
01:15:10,360 --> 01:15:23,040
I did for Tom Hanks and Jeremy Davis and all of the other, Tom Sizemore and Rob Lisey and

1103
01:15:23,040 --> 01:15:24,320
all the other guys.

1104
01:15:24,320 --> 01:15:32,440
We made a decision not to include him because we knew how well my training works.

1105
01:15:32,440 --> 01:15:39,920
And if we had put him in training with the rest of the actors, they would have bonded.

1106
01:15:39,920 --> 01:15:41,600
It's going to happen.

1107
01:15:41,600 --> 01:15:45,040
That's part and parcel of why I train the way I do.

1108
01:15:45,040 --> 01:15:52,480
And if that happened, the performance when they met each other would have been a false

1109
01:15:52,480 --> 01:15:59,600
note and we both knew that, so we decided not to include Matt.

1110
01:15:59,600 --> 01:16:02,000
But I still had to get him trained.

1111
01:16:02,000 --> 01:16:07,600
And so later on, once the initial training of the main cast was over, I took Matt aside

1112
01:16:07,600 --> 01:16:09,400
and ran him through some stuff.

1113
01:16:09,400 --> 01:16:15,080
He had to learn how to handle a 2.6-inch rocket launcher, Bazooka, and a number of other things.

1114
01:16:15,080 --> 01:16:21,700
And so I ran him through an abbreviated solo sort of training syllabus after the main training

1115
01:16:21,700 --> 01:16:22,700
syllabus was over.

1116
01:16:22,700 --> 01:16:26,560
And how long was the boot camp for the rest of the cast?

1117
01:16:26,560 --> 01:16:33,480
We had him in the field for eight days and I had Matt for about three days.

1118
01:16:33,480 --> 01:16:39,040
Okay, because I know Tom Hanks' scene where he goes around the corner and then breaks

1119
01:16:39,040 --> 01:16:46,480
down, I mean, that to me as a viewer was as real as anything I'd ever seen on screen before.

1120
01:16:46,480 --> 01:16:53,560
Yeah, and Tom's been very kind and kind to credit me with giving him some insight, some

1121
01:16:53,560 --> 01:17:01,720
emotional psychological insight as to what he might be feeling, what he might be thinking.

1122
01:17:01,720 --> 01:17:04,280
And I think it helped him.

1123
01:17:04,280 --> 01:17:06,680
It helped him get where he needed to go for that scene.

1124
01:17:06,680 --> 01:17:07,680
Yeah, yeah.

1125
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:14,200
And I know the opening D-Day landing, the Normandy landing, I think that was literally

1126
01:17:14,200 --> 01:17:18,200
a paradigm shift in theater after that too.

1127
01:17:18,200 --> 01:17:22,560
Yeah, I got my Eisenhower fix that day, I'll tell you.

1128
01:17:22,560 --> 01:17:33,120
We had about 800 to 1,000 Irish sort of National Guard territorial army soldiers on the beach,

1129
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:36,480
14 armored vehicles and seven boats at sea.

1130
01:17:36,480 --> 01:17:43,360
So it was a zoo and once we rolled it, no use standing there waving your arms and yelling

1131
01:17:43,360 --> 01:17:44,640
cut, that wasn't going to happen.

1132
01:17:44,640 --> 01:17:46,440
They were going to go straight through this thing.

1133
01:17:46,440 --> 01:17:49,080
Yeah, I'm sorry, go on.

1134
01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:54,300
No, I was about to say that's one of the reasons I had to teach them to reload and operate

1135
01:17:54,300 --> 01:18:00,360
their own weapons and carry extra ammo because we couldn't stop to have some armor run in

1136
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:03,360
and reload an M1 for them.

1137
01:18:03,360 --> 01:18:08,640
I think one thing that I took from watching the film that I'd never really seen before,

1138
01:18:08,640 --> 01:18:14,120
maybe it was present in Pertoon but it seemed far more poignant in Saving Private Ryan,

1139
01:18:14,120 --> 01:18:18,080
was the fact that you'd get to know a character and then all of a sudden they just get shot.

1140
01:18:18,080 --> 01:18:22,600
And you're like, wait a second, the good guys always survive in these movies before and

1141
01:18:22,600 --> 01:18:29,200
it just showed the futility or the senselessness of the loss of life in combat.

1142
01:18:29,200 --> 01:18:33,320
Well, it's neither futile nor senseless, but it is random.

1143
01:18:33,320 --> 01:18:35,120
Okay, that's a better word.

1144
01:18:35,120 --> 01:18:36,120
Yeah, okay.

1145
01:18:36,120 --> 01:18:42,440
But again, so you get vested in a character when you watch a movie and before they protected

1146
01:18:42,440 --> 01:18:43,440
that character.

1147
01:18:43,440 --> 01:18:46,600
Okay, this is a central figure in the script.

1148
01:18:46,600 --> 01:18:47,600
But now...

1149
01:18:47,600 --> 01:18:49,080
If he's hit, it's always in the shoulder.

1150
01:18:49,080 --> 01:18:50,080
Exactly, exactly.

1151
01:18:50,080 --> 01:18:52,040
Yeah, so now the guy's gone.

1152
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:54,320
You're like, okay, that sucked.

1153
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:55,320
Yeah.

1154
01:18:55,320 --> 01:19:00,760
So, all right, well, that brings me to the next big project and there's a story again

1155
01:19:00,760 --> 01:19:02,520
between us with that.

1156
01:19:02,520 --> 01:19:08,360
When I was out of drama school and really before I got into the stunt side, I was stuck

1157
01:19:08,360 --> 01:19:15,320
in that vortex of being told by agencies that they like my work but go get another one,

1158
01:19:15,320 --> 01:19:19,240
they'll come and watch it and then they'll sign me and then not be able to get work because

1159
01:19:19,240 --> 01:19:21,200
I didn't have an agent.

1160
01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:25,880
And I'd actually submitted my resume to this project called Bander Brothers, which obviously

1161
01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:26,880
you worked on.

1162
01:19:26,880 --> 01:19:32,040
And then when we met in Japan, years later, you'd said if you'd known me, I would have

1163
01:19:32,040 --> 01:19:33,040
been a good fit.

1164
01:19:33,040 --> 01:19:37,000
So that initially was always like this awful haunting experience for me.

1165
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:43,480
But then now as a fireman, I realized I was never destined to be on screen anyway.

1166
01:19:43,480 --> 01:19:47,960
So tell me about how Bander Brothers came into your life.

1167
01:19:47,960 --> 01:19:54,800
Well, I was down on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles buying a suitcase and I can't remember

1168
01:19:54,800 --> 01:19:56,760
why.

1169
01:19:56,760 --> 01:20:01,640
But my cell phone rang and it was Steven Spielberg.

1170
01:20:01,640 --> 01:20:04,680
And he said, look, I've got something.

1171
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:07,560
Can you meet me?

1172
01:20:07,560 --> 01:20:09,360
And I said, you're Steven Spielberg.

1173
01:20:09,360 --> 01:20:11,960
You're damn right I can meet you.

1174
01:20:11,960 --> 01:20:21,640
So I bought the suitcase and then I went to Universal Lot into Amblin and in an office

1175
01:20:21,640 --> 01:20:28,760
there was Tom Hanks and a couple of producers and some people from HBO.

1176
01:20:28,760 --> 01:20:36,040
And they said, look, we are going to do a mini series, 10 Hours for Television, based

1177
01:20:36,040 --> 01:20:38,720
on a book called Bander Brothers.

1178
01:20:38,720 --> 01:20:44,360
And I said, oh, I know that book.

1179
01:20:44,360 --> 01:20:47,320
I know that book very well, Steven Ambrose.

1180
01:20:47,320 --> 01:20:49,240
And they said, yeah, that's right.

1181
01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:50,240
I said, great.

1182
01:20:50,240 --> 01:20:51,240
How can I help?

1183
01:20:51,240 --> 01:20:56,460
And they said, well, it's going to take about a year to get this done.

1184
01:20:56,460 --> 01:20:59,920
But we're going to do it and we're going to do it in England.

1185
01:20:59,920 --> 01:21:05,280
And we want you to design and train the actors.

1186
01:21:05,280 --> 01:21:09,320
There'll be as many as 40 or 50 of them.

1187
01:21:09,320 --> 01:21:16,480
And we want you to be the primary consultant for all the department heads, uniforms, weapons,

1188
01:21:16,480 --> 01:21:18,480
everything else.

1189
01:21:18,480 --> 01:21:20,000
How's that sound, Captain Die?

1190
01:21:20,000 --> 01:21:25,040
And I said, well, that is not a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

1191
01:21:25,040 --> 01:21:26,160
I'm ready.

1192
01:21:26,160 --> 01:21:27,160
What do I do here?

1193
01:21:27,160 --> 01:21:28,520
Where do I sign?

1194
01:21:28,520 --> 01:21:34,760
And so we began the process of assembling what it took to do Bander Brothers.

1195
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:45,800
I was able to take the entire cast into a place called Longmore Camp in the UK, which

1196
01:21:45,800 --> 01:21:52,960
is a British military reserve base, and set up the training.

1197
01:21:52,960 --> 01:21:57,680
Before I did that, I actually assembled a unit of Germans.

1198
01:21:57,680 --> 01:22:03,080
And we all got into German uniform and I taught them German weapons and tactics for a week.

1199
01:22:03,080 --> 01:22:07,240
And then I sent the Germans away and I brought in the Americans.

1200
01:22:07,240 --> 01:22:15,720
And we trained them very, very hard because I knew that we had a big one here.

1201
01:22:15,720 --> 01:22:20,600
And the neat thing about a miniseries is that you've got time to explore the characters.

1202
01:22:20,600 --> 01:22:23,080
You've got 10 hours.

1203
01:22:23,080 --> 01:22:28,640
And so I wanted it to be absolutely on the mark, spot on as I could get it.

1204
01:22:28,640 --> 01:22:31,120
So we did an enormous amount of historical research.

1205
01:22:31,120 --> 01:22:37,920
We trained hard up to and including the British gave us access to their number one parachute

1206
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:40,780
school at Bries Norton.

1207
01:22:40,780 --> 01:22:45,200
And we bussed the entire cast up there and sent them, went them, put them through ground

1208
01:22:45,200 --> 01:22:46,200
school for parachuting.

1209
01:22:46,200 --> 01:22:51,160
The only thing they wouldn't let me do is actually get them out of the door of an airborne

1210
01:22:51,160 --> 01:22:52,160
aircraft.

1211
01:22:52,160 --> 01:22:55,280
That was insurance problems.

1212
01:22:55,280 --> 01:22:56,680
But we did everything else.

1213
01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:59,200
We did everything short of that.

1214
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:03,600
And it was one of the most marvelous training experiences I ever had.

1215
01:23:03,600 --> 01:23:09,000
I had about six of my own cadre, my NCOs and officers who were with me.

1216
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:15,040
And we were able to pay strict and close attention to everybody in that film.

1217
01:23:15,040 --> 01:23:19,960
We knew we had magic about halfway through it.

1218
01:23:19,960 --> 01:23:26,440
And to this day, I think it remains one of the things I constantly hear about.

1219
01:23:26,440 --> 01:23:30,140
I mean, all of the Band of Brothers actors get together once a year.

1220
01:23:30,140 --> 01:23:32,480
We have a reunion.

1221
01:23:32,480 --> 01:23:37,640
I got this great opportunity to play Colonel Bob Sink, who is the commanding officer of

1222
01:23:37,640 --> 01:23:41,120
the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment.

1223
01:23:41,120 --> 01:23:45,880
So all of the stars had aligned.

1224
01:23:45,880 --> 01:23:50,880
And of course, we, I don't know, once something like 13 Emmys.

1225
01:23:50,880 --> 01:23:51,880
But it was magic.

1226
01:23:51,880 --> 01:23:56,480
And it's one of the things I'm most proud of in a long and varied and lurid career.

1227
01:23:56,480 --> 01:24:02,080
Yeah, I would say it was my favorite piece of film slash television full stop.

1228
01:24:02,080 --> 01:24:03,080
I mean, no question.

1229
01:24:03,080 --> 01:24:07,640
The other day, the band, Saving Private Ryan and Platoon are up there.

1230
01:24:07,640 --> 01:24:12,120
Axel Ridge I saw recently was phenomenal, but Band of Brothers will always be my favorite

1231
01:24:12,120 --> 01:24:13,120
hands down.

1232
01:24:13,120 --> 01:24:14,120
Yeah, yeah.

1233
01:24:14,120 --> 01:24:15,120
Yeah.

1234
01:24:15,120 --> 01:24:19,720
And you're among a huge amount of people all over the world.

1235
01:24:19,720 --> 01:24:24,960
I was in Bathstone earlier this year.

1236
01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:26,680
They invited me over.

1237
01:24:26,680 --> 01:24:35,400
And you know, there were like 2500 people in the snow and cold lined up just to shake

1238
01:24:35,400 --> 01:24:40,640
my hand or have me sign a picture or sign a poster or you know, get my picture taken

1239
01:24:40,640 --> 01:24:42,680
with them.

1240
01:24:42,680 --> 01:24:50,240
And when something like that happens to a loser like me, you know, that tells you you

1241
01:24:50,240 --> 01:24:52,000
did something special.

1242
01:24:52,000 --> 01:24:53,960
And we certainly did with Band of Brothers.

1243
01:24:53,960 --> 01:24:58,040
Now the most of the original guys were still alive at that point, weren't they?

1244
01:24:58,040 --> 01:24:59,040
So were they involved?

1245
01:24:59,040 --> 01:25:00,360
A lot of them were.

1246
01:25:00,360 --> 01:25:02,560
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

1247
01:25:02,560 --> 01:25:08,360
And Steven made sure that, Steven Spielberg made sure that as many of them as possible,

1248
01:25:08,360 --> 01:25:14,120
as many of the actors who were portraying real characters who were still alive, spent

1249
01:25:14,120 --> 01:25:20,400
as much time on the phone or visits or whatever we could to connect them up.

1250
01:25:20,400 --> 01:25:24,880
And I monitored all of that because I knew that we were going to have to depart in some

1251
01:25:24,880 --> 01:25:29,400
areas from what actually happened for dramatic license.

1252
01:25:29,400 --> 01:25:35,360
But the guys, they were all these really good up and coming sort of B-list actors.

1253
01:25:35,360 --> 01:25:38,120
None of them were stars at this point.

1254
01:25:38,120 --> 01:25:40,160
And so they were the serious guys.

1255
01:25:40,160 --> 01:25:41,240
They were the storytellers.

1256
01:25:41,240 --> 01:25:44,500
They were the ones who wanted to do this right.

1257
01:25:44,500 --> 01:25:54,360
And so those guys like Bill Garnier and Babe Heffron and a bunch of others, you know, were

1258
01:25:54,360 --> 01:25:55,360
there.

1259
01:25:55,360 --> 01:26:00,200
And they weren't there all the time we were filming, but they came to see us when we were

1260
01:26:00,200 --> 01:26:04,560
training and they were an enormous help.

1261
01:26:04,560 --> 01:26:09,480
Yeah, their personal testimony at the end of each episode was just heartbreaking to

1262
01:26:09,480 --> 01:26:16,240
see them reliving that story in their mind and their eyes kind of tear up was about as

1263
01:26:16,240 --> 01:26:18,280
moving as anything I've ever seen.

1264
01:26:18,280 --> 01:26:24,480
Yeah, which is one of the things I'm trying to do with this new movie.

1265
01:26:24,480 --> 01:26:30,880
I'm raising money, seed money for a film called No Better Place to Die, which is, I hope,

1266
01:26:30,880 --> 01:26:39,280
will do for the 82nd Airborne in World War II what Band of Brothers did for the 101st.

1267
01:26:39,280 --> 01:26:41,960
It's an extraordinary movie.

1268
01:26:41,960 --> 01:26:50,320
And I'm sort of playing off what we did with Band of Brothers because this will be a theatrical

1269
01:26:50,320 --> 01:26:55,840
release, 120 minutes rather than 10 hours for television.

1270
01:26:55,840 --> 01:26:57,160
But I think I can do it.

1271
01:26:57,160 --> 01:27:05,200
I think I can combine elements of the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan with all

1272
01:27:05,200 --> 01:27:10,480
of the in-depth coverage that we did in Band of Brothers.

1273
01:27:10,480 --> 01:27:16,880
And I've been trying to do it for years, James, and I wrote it.

1274
01:27:16,880 --> 01:27:18,560
I want to direct it.

1275
01:27:18,560 --> 01:27:24,880
It has to do with the fight of a cobbled together group of 82nd Airborne paratroopers at La

1276
01:27:24,880 --> 01:27:32,080
Fiere, a bridge which had to be taken and held by the paratroopers or the Germans would

1277
01:27:32,080 --> 01:27:39,560
have bombed right across it and blown the Americans, the allies off the landing beaches.

1278
01:27:39,560 --> 01:27:43,360
So it was crucial to the success of D-Day.

1279
01:27:43,360 --> 01:27:51,280
And it was a story that I had known for years, and I always thought it was a microcosmic

1280
01:27:51,280 --> 01:27:58,000
look at what can happen when small groups of motivated individuals get together and

1281
01:27:58,000 --> 01:28:00,720
the big plan goes in the crapper.

1282
01:28:00,720 --> 01:28:06,320
But these guys know what has to be done, and they come together, and they do it.

1283
01:28:06,320 --> 01:28:10,120
And no one had ever examined that fight on film.

1284
01:28:10,120 --> 01:28:11,300
And I said, well, I should.

1285
01:28:11,300 --> 01:28:13,800
And so I wrote it.

1286
01:28:13,800 --> 01:28:20,680
And after I wrote it and backed off a bit, I said, well, you know, after the only way

1287
01:28:20,680 --> 01:28:26,440
to really make this the beauty, the blockbuster that it needs to be is if I direct it.

1288
01:28:26,440 --> 01:28:30,840
Now, I've directed some second unit stuff and so on and so forth, but the budget is

1289
01:28:30,840 --> 01:28:33,040
up around 20, $25 million.

1290
01:28:33,040 --> 01:28:40,040
And I was having an enormous amount of trouble getting people to trust me with that much

1291
01:28:40,040 --> 01:28:45,440
money, despite my record of success and so on and so forth, because I would not be the

1292
01:28:45,440 --> 01:28:48,840
guy who said how the money gets spent.

1293
01:28:48,840 --> 01:28:54,580
And so I fooled with it for about four years off and on, really trying to do it in the

1294
01:28:54,580 --> 01:28:57,560
traditional Hollywood fashion.

1295
01:28:57,560 --> 01:28:59,240
And I was unsuccessful.

1296
01:28:59,240 --> 01:29:03,480
So I decided, you know the hell with it.

1297
01:29:03,480 --> 01:29:11,000
Those paratroopers in June of 1944, who dropped in and took Lafayette and held it against

1298
01:29:11,000 --> 01:29:17,800
incredible German attacks, they adapted, innovated, and overcame.

1299
01:29:17,800 --> 01:29:21,440
And that, by God, is what I need to do with this picture.

1300
01:29:21,440 --> 01:29:27,440
And so we started this, we started a crowdfunding thing.

1301
01:29:27,440 --> 01:29:28,920
And it's in existence right now.

1302
01:29:28,920 --> 01:29:32,520
I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes.

1303
01:29:32,520 --> 01:29:40,760
But one of the things that I decided to do, and this goes to your question or your comment

1304
01:29:40,760 --> 01:29:48,080
about the vortex of what I've, showbiz, I've understood for many years, because I get constant

1305
01:29:48,080 --> 01:29:54,320
emails and phone calls and letters, that there's a huge pool of talented military veterans

1306
01:29:54,320 --> 01:30:00,600
out there trying to break into showbiz, either as actors or technicians.

1307
01:30:00,600 --> 01:30:06,560
And because they started a little later, and because they haven't done what would be considered

1308
01:30:06,560 --> 01:30:14,880
an apprenticeship, they have a hell of a time demonstrating their talent in motion pictures

1309
01:30:14,880 --> 01:30:15,880
and television.

1310
01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:19,320
And I said, well, you know, look, let's do it this way.

1311
01:30:19,320 --> 01:30:27,080
Let's make No Better Place to Die, a movie about veterans, for veterans, and done by

1312
01:30:27,080 --> 01:30:28,780
veterans.

1313
01:30:28,780 --> 01:30:34,320
So I am bound and determined to put as many real veterans in front of the camera and behind

1314
01:30:34,320 --> 01:30:36,720
the camera as I can.

1315
01:30:36,720 --> 01:30:42,000
I want this to be a kind of a showcase and show Hollywood what talent is out there.

1316
01:30:42,000 --> 01:30:45,080
It's a long, hard slog, James.

1317
01:30:45,080 --> 01:30:50,200
Getting somebody to trust us, you know, showbiz is the biggest crapshoot in the world.

1318
01:30:50,200 --> 01:30:56,880
And getting somebody with deep enough pockets to trust us is a long uphill slog.

1319
01:30:56,880 --> 01:31:01,560
But what I'm seeing, and this goes back to that great groundswell of populism that I

1320
01:31:01,560 --> 01:31:07,720
was talking about, what we're seeing is the support we're getting and the veterans who

1321
01:31:07,720 --> 01:31:11,840
are just coming out of the woodwork and saying, what can I do?

1322
01:31:11,840 --> 01:31:17,360
I'll dig ditches, I'll pour coffee, I'll be your tea bitch, whatever you need me to do.

1323
01:31:17,360 --> 01:31:21,240
I want to be involved in this, because this is our shot.

1324
01:31:21,240 --> 01:31:22,760
This is our time.

1325
01:31:22,760 --> 01:31:29,480
And so we're raising the seed money, and we hope that the money we raise will help us

1326
01:31:29,480 --> 01:31:37,580
with admin costs and, most importantly, will prove to people with deep pockets who can

1327
01:31:37,580 --> 01:31:43,840
invest in this sort of thing that we have that popular support, that we have that groundswell.

1328
01:31:43,840 --> 01:31:50,320
And this will be a huge moneymaker if they'll come in with enough money to help us get it

1329
01:31:50,320 --> 01:31:51,320
made.

1330
01:31:51,320 --> 01:31:58,240
And I segwayed right the hell into what I wanted to talk about there.

1331
01:31:58,240 --> 01:31:59,440
And so that's what we're doing.

1332
01:31:59,440 --> 01:32:01,720
We're reaching out to everybody I can.

1333
01:32:01,720 --> 01:32:08,740
I'm doing every podcast, every interview to try to explain this to people and to elicit

1334
01:32:08,740 --> 01:32:16,800
their support monetarily or just physically, help us build the buzz, talk about this project,

1335
01:32:16,800 --> 01:32:18,080
investigate this project.

1336
01:32:18,080 --> 01:32:23,640
It's all there on an Indiegogo page, No Better Place to Die.

1337
01:32:23,640 --> 01:32:24,640
And you're going to read the philosophy.

1338
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:28,000
You're going to read what we're trying to do.

1339
01:32:28,000 --> 01:32:34,160
We're bound and determined to give some of the profits, if any, back to veterans' causes.

1340
01:32:34,160 --> 01:32:42,160
I want this to be proof that we can do things without having to bow and kowtow to the way

1341
01:32:42,160 --> 01:32:43,960
Hollywood normally does things.

1342
01:32:43,960 --> 01:32:48,440
Yeah, I think this is a great opportunity as well for action.

1343
01:32:48,440 --> 01:32:54,320
You see social media flooded with support, our troops and American flags and that kind

1344
01:32:54,320 --> 01:32:55,320
of thing.

1345
01:32:55,320 --> 01:32:56,320
But that's not doing anything.

1346
01:32:56,320 --> 01:32:57,320
No, it isn't.

1347
01:32:57,320 --> 01:32:58,320
What great way to honor it.

1348
01:32:58,320 --> 01:33:00,520
And believe me, the veterans know that.

1349
01:33:00,520 --> 01:33:03,840
I'm sure they do.

1350
01:33:03,840 --> 01:33:08,600
So this is an opportunity, I think, as you say, to put words into action.

1351
01:33:08,600 --> 01:33:09,600
Okay.

1352
01:33:09,600 --> 01:33:13,680
Well, I will definitely post that link and I will continually share that project as well

1353
01:33:13,680 --> 01:33:18,680
and see if my small project can be part of the Jigsaw puzzle that will help push it forward.

1354
01:33:18,680 --> 01:33:23,040
And if you do need an English person that's really good at falling over for the project,

1355
01:33:23,040 --> 01:33:25,040
you just let me know.

1356
01:33:25,040 --> 01:33:28,160
Absolutely.

1357
01:33:28,160 --> 01:33:31,400
So thank you so much for giving us all your time.

1358
01:33:31,400 --> 01:33:35,600
I've got a couple of very quick questions for you and then we'll let you get on your

1359
01:33:35,600 --> 01:33:36,600
way.

1360
01:33:36,600 --> 01:33:37,600
Okay.

1361
01:33:37,600 --> 01:33:38,600
So I just want to talk briefly about books.

1362
01:33:38,600 --> 01:33:42,160
Normally I ask what books do people recommend, but I want to give you the opportunity to

1363
01:33:42,160 --> 01:33:47,280
talk about the books that you've written because I went to list them and there were so many.

1364
01:33:47,280 --> 01:33:51,040
So which books have you got out there and which would be your, let's say your top three

1365
01:33:51,040 --> 01:33:53,400
to recommend people to read?

1366
01:33:53,400 --> 01:33:59,240
Well I think they probably ought to take a look at Run Between the Raindrops, which is

1367
01:33:59,240 --> 01:34:00,840
a Vietnam story.

1368
01:34:00,840 --> 01:34:05,320
I would love to recommend the file series, the Shake Davis Adventures.

1369
01:34:05,320 --> 01:34:11,260
This is a single character that goes through, I think there's seven books out there now.

1370
01:34:11,260 --> 01:34:13,960
It's called the Shake Davis File Series.

1371
01:34:13,960 --> 01:34:21,760
They're each a file, like Laos file, Aztec file is the most recent one, Beirut file and

1372
01:34:21,760 --> 01:34:22,760
so on and so forth.

1373
01:34:22,760 --> 01:34:30,040
So they're all military themed with a single character as the protagonist and kind of like

1374
01:34:30,040 --> 01:34:32,200
Lee Child and Jack Reacher.

1375
01:34:32,200 --> 01:34:36,080
So I'd recommend the file series books.

1376
01:34:36,080 --> 01:34:42,320
I'd recommend Run Between the Raindrops and we're about to bring out a reissue of one

1377
01:34:42,320 --> 01:34:50,440
of my earlier books called Duty and Dishonor, which is a very fascinating Vietnam story.

1378
01:34:50,440 --> 01:34:55,480
But it has elements of what was happening in the nation all throughout the 1970s and

1379
01:34:55,480 --> 01:34:57,700
80s.

1380
01:34:57,700 --> 01:35:00,160
So those would be the top three, James.

1381
01:35:00,160 --> 01:35:02,440
Okay and then very last question then.

1382
01:35:02,440 --> 01:35:09,560
Where can people find you, find your Warriors Inc. site and just remind us again of where

1383
01:35:09,560 --> 01:35:12,880
to find the No Better Place to Die website.

1384
01:35:12,880 --> 01:35:19,900
Okay, No Better Place to Die is an official, that's the name of the site, No Better Place

1385
01:35:19,900 --> 01:35:21,800
to Die.

1386
01:35:21,800 --> 01:35:31,520
You can find that on Facebook and it will lead you to the Indiegogo fundraising campaign.

1387
01:35:31,520 --> 01:35:44,320
And I'm on three or four sites on Facebook, Warriors Inc., Dale Die Group, Warriors Publishing

1388
01:35:44,320 --> 01:35:51,720
Group, Captain Dale Die and Dale Die, they're all on Facebook.

1389
01:35:51,720 --> 01:36:00,920
There's also all kinds of Twitter and Instagram sites, none of which I'm aware of because

1390
01:36:00,920 --> 01:36:06,480
I don't do them, I don't tweet, but I have people who tweet for me.

1391
01:36:06,480 --> 01:36:13,600
So I guess, you know, if you just whack up the computer and hit Dale Die and there are

1392
01:36:13,600 --> 01:36:16,200
no better place to die in there, it will take you all over.

1393
01:36:16,200 --> 01:36:17,200
Okay, brilliant.

1394
01:36:17,200 --> 01:36:19,000
Well, I'm going to let you get on your way.

1395
01:36:19,000 --> 01:36:21,680
Thank you so much for being so generous with your time.

1396
01:36:21,680 --> 01:36:25,320
You've given so many lessons and an amazing life story.

1397
01:36:25,320 --> 01:36:31,560
It was a pleasure working with you before and I've really loved reconnecting and I hope

1398
01:36:31,560 --> 01:36:33,960
that we can talk again in the future sometime.

1399
01:36:33,960 --> 01:36:35,920
Well, I do too, James.

1400
01:36:35,920 --> 01:36:37,320
It's been a real pleasure.

1401
01:36:37,320 --> 01:36:45,080
And just let me know when, where and how on this thing and I'll publicize your podcast

1402
01:36:45,080 --> 01:36:49,800
and hopefully we'll get some people sharing our conversation and our insights.

1403
01:36:49,800 --> 01:36:50,800
I really appreciate it.

1404
01:36:50,800 --> 01:36:51,800
Thank you very much.

1405
01:36:51,800 --> 01:36:52,800
Thank you so much.

1406
01:36:52,800 --> 01:37:05,380
I came to see you guys.