Dale Adam Dye, Jr. (born October 8, 1944) is an American author, actor, presenter, businessman, and retired United States Marine Corps captain who served in combat during the Vietnam War. Dye was a Marine Corps Limited Duty Officer (LDO), he was also a mustang, i.e., someone who began as an enlisted service member and earned their commission after enlistment.
Early life and Marine service
Dye was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the son of Della Grace (Koehler) and Dale Adam Dye, Sr. He attended the Missouri Military Academy, graduating as a cadet officer. Lacking the money to attend college, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in January 1964. Beginning with a tour of duty in 1965, he participated in 31 combat operations in South Vietnam. During his 1967 to 1968 and 1969 to 1970 tours of duty, he was a Marine combat correspondent attached to different battalions of the 1st Marine Division. For his service in Southeast Asia, he earned a number of personal and unit awards, including the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" for heroism under fire in 1968, and three Purple Heart Medals for wounds suffered in combat.
Dye spent a total of 13 years as an enlisted Marine, rising to the rank of Master Sergeant before being appointed a Warrant Officer in 1976. He later accepted an officer's commission, and was serving as a Marine Captain when he deployed to Beirut for duty with the Multinational Force in Lebanon in 1982 and 1983.
During his active duty service, Dye earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Maryland. After retiring from the Marine Corps in 1984, Dye became a correspondent for Soldier of Fortune Magazine. While with the magazine, he worked in Central America, providing guerrilla warfare training to troops in El Salvador and Nicaragua in addition to reporting on the conflicts in the region. He left the magazine after one year, and went on to bigger things in Hollywood.
Fellow Marine correspondent Gustav Hasford dubbed him "Daddy D.A" (as he was among the oldest of the correspondents) and included him as a character in his first semi-autobiographical Vietnam novel, The Short-Timers, and more extensively in his second, The Phantom Blooper. The movie based on Hasford's first novel, Full Metal Jacket, included the "Daddy D.A" character (played by Keith Hodiak), though neither the character nor Dye's name is explicitly mentioned in the dialogue.
In his book Dispatches, journalist Michael Herr provides a vivid picture of Dye during the chaos of the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Huế:
"And there was a Marine correspondent, Sergeant Dale Dye, who sat with a tall yellow flower sticking out of his helmet cover, a really outstanding target. He was rolling his eyes around and saying, 'Oh yes, oh yes, Charlie's got his shit together here, this will be bad,' and smiling happily. It was the same smile I saw a week later when a sniper's bullet tore up a wall two inches above his head, odd cause for amusement in anyone but a grunt."
Writing career
Dye has written a number of novels, including Run Between The Raindrops (1985, also published as Citadel) and Conduct Unbecoming (1992). In addition he wrote the novelisation of the film Platoon.
Founding Warriors, Inc. and other work
After his retirement in 1984 from the United States Marines, Dye founded Warriors, Inc., a California company that specializes in training actors for realistic military portrayals, for movies of the war genre. In the 1986 movie Platoon, he played Captain Harris and served as military technical advisor. He also wrote the novelization based on Oliver Stone's screenplay.
Dye has also appeared in some of the films of which his company has served. He played a role in the movie Casualties of War and also played Colonel Robert F. Sink in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, on which his company also worked, and is now beginning a directing career. He appeared in Outbreak portraying Lieutenant Colonel Briggs, a US Army officer. He plays Theodore Roosevelt's superior officer, Colonel Leonard Wood, in the TNT miniseries Rough Riders. He has a small role in Saving Private Ryan as an aide to General George Catlett Marshall as well as a role playing the Admiral's aide, Captain Garza, in Under Siege and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. He had another small role in Spy Game as Commander Wiley during the rescue sequence, in Mission Impossible as Frank Barnes of CIA, in JFK as General Y, and in Starship Troopers as a high-ranking officer in the aftermath of the Brain Bug capture. Dye played himself in Entourage, teaching Vince to scuba dive in preparation for his role in Aquaman. He appeared in the 2011 Tom Hanks film Larry Crowne.
Additionally, Dye used to host a Sunday evening radio show on KFI AM 640, Los Angeles. He occasionally does fill-in. Dye has also been involved in the Medal of Honor series of video games as a consultant. He was featured in two tracks on Hoobastank's CD Every Man for Himself. He hosted The History Channel's documentary series The Conquerors. He consulted for Lucas Art 2008 scheduled Fracture video game as well as appearing in a cameo role as Col. Robert Sink (Commander of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment) in a video game Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. He was the technical adviser for the 1994 Oliver Stone movie Natural Born Killers.
Dye has also worked on the HBO companion piece to Band of Brothers, the ten-part mini-series The Pacific, which was shot in Australia.
Dye currently plays Col. Porter in the TNT science fiction series Falling Skies.
Dye, along with wife Julia and comic book artist Gerry Kissell created one of 2011's critically acclaimed and best selling graphic novels, Code Word: Geronimo, for publisher IDW Publishing, that tells the story of the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's compound.
Military decorations and awards
Dye's military awards include:
Filmography
References
Further reading
- Herr, Michael (1977). "Chapter 2: Hell Sucks". Dispatches. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 70â€"85.Â
External links
- Warriors Inc official website
- Dale Dye at the Internet Movie Database
- Dale Dye leadership
