#383: The Virtues of the Masks of Masculinity
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
178.79626
Summary
In the past few years, there s been a lot written about the ills of the mass of masculinity. These supposed social masks are the source of personal problems in the lives of men, as well as countless societal problems. But what if the problem isn t the masks themselves, but the lack of teaching young men how to wear these masks in a way that is productive and pro-social? That s what my guest today suggests. His name is Dale Die, and he makes his living teaching actors how to put on the mask of the masculine soldier.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast in the past few
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years there's been a lot written about the ills of the mass of masculinity these supposed social
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masks are the source of personal problems in the lives of men as well as countless societal
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problems but what if the problem isn't the mask of masculinity themselves what if the problem is we
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don't teach young man how to wear these masks in a way that's productive and pro-social that's what
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my guest today suggests he makes his living teaching actors how to put on the mask of the
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masculine soldier his name is dale die he's a retired marine captain who served in vietnam as
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well as the owner of warriors inc a company that consults actors and filmmakers on how to make war
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movies more realistic today on the show dale and i discuss how you went from a career in the military
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to a career in film and what many filmmakers get wrong about war using war historian john keegan's
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book the mask of command as a starting point dale and i discuss why social masks are necessary in
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leadership war and even being a man dale shares insights about the mask of masculinity from years
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of teaching actors how to be soldiers and why it's important to have multiple masks in your arsenal and
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know when to put them on in different situations after the show's over check out the show notes at
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aom.is slash dale die okay dale die welcome to the show thanks very much brett i appreciate your time
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so you have a really interesting resume you started off your marine vet served in vietnam
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gotten to showbiz we'll talk a bit about that author as well have done some acting
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too so let's start from the beginning your military career you served in the marines
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you you retired as a captain did you start off as a commissioned officer or is that something you
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worked your way up to no i'm i'm what's known in the navy and the marine corps as a mustang i uh
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i came up through the ranks i uh was 13 years enlisted made it to the rank of master sergeant
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and then was kind of coerced by some folks who thought i might make a leader
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into uh going to officer candidate school i became a warrant officer and later converted my commission
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and by the time of my uh my last uh combat deployment which was beirut 82 83 i had become a captain
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so i kind of came up through the hawse pipe right and uh it's interesting i've heard i've heard other
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interviews and you've done a tedx talk talking about as a leader in the military you feel sometimes
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feel like you're you're raising other people's children why why is that well i think the truthful
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answer is that a lot of parents don't do such a good job at that and they send their young sons or
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daughters off into the military or their young sons and daughters decide to go into the military
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looking for something looking for some structure looking for some guidance looking for images and
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examples that they sort of want to grow up into being and i've always thought that one of the
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greatest and most significant tasks of a leader is to provide those images to provide that guidance to
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provide that leadership not only in military aspects of life but just who you are and how you address
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life and how you handle problems and how you stand up to adversity and i think i think that's one of the
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key elements of leadership and and i've always shorthanded it by saying um i spent a lot of my
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life raising other people's children right and as a leader so you you said that other people thought
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you'd be a good leader when you were in the military was leadership something you aspired to or were you
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just you were just there to do the work and if you got put in a leadership position then great
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no i i think i have to say honestly that i aspired to be a leader i was influenced by so many
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um that i saw that were my images the images i needed and i wanted to be that person i felt like
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i had the the talent to do it the ability to do it the personality to pull it off and i thought
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at first early on well let me test this let me dip my toe in the water and when i became a corporal
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you know was i good at that or did i just suck at it and uh and i should you know go back to
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just being a job guy and what i discovered was that it was a great joy it was it was fun
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to be a good leader and was leadership something you felt okay you felt like you had a natural knack
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for it but did you have to learn how to be a leader like did you have to be intentional about
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being a good leader no lord yes i i wish it were true brett that leaders are born but they're not
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and they never will be i don't think there are certain people who who gravitate to it who are
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good at it i think i'm one of those but you have to learn the steps you have to and and very often
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at least in my case you learn by screwing it up you learn what things are wrong you learn
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people and i think that's the most crucial element of it you have to understand people i've i've often
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said and still say that you have to love them to lead them people in the military in particular
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have a very very high highly sophisticated bs filter they know when you're being true and when
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you're being faithful and we're just putting on an act and and i understood that i learned that
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that you can't just go out and be the you know the bonham nice guy you have to have that principle
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of loving and caring about the people under your charge and and if you can do that and and the
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sentiment is sincere the psychology is there then you'll develop the tools that you need to get the
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job done were you uh intentional about reading books on leadership or was you were you more of a
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i'm going to gain i'm going to gain my knowledge of leadership by experience i i think it went both
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ways brad i think like all professional military people i'm an amateur historian i'm i'm sitting in
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my library right now surrounded by about 1100 volumes and i've read every one of them you you can learn so
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much by reading about the great leaders and this goes all the way back i mean caesar's gallic wars was
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one of the first things i read about leadership so it it goes throughout our military history and i focused on
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on military aspects uh some other people focus on political or business aspects but my focus was on
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the military so i read these these biographies and i read the books about the battles and the actions
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and the leaders role in them and then i began to sort of carve it down sort of focus it into
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what what what did these people that i'm i'm reading about have what what did they demonstrate
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bad and good and uh and so once once i had a few of those concepts in mind concepts that i'd gotten
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through my reading i began to experiment with them began to try to be this guy or try to do what that guy
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did and some was good some was bad some was situational but all of it was instructive all of it was
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giving me uh was sharpening the tools i needed to be a good leader so uh there's a one military
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historian that i that i've come across his name is john keegan he wrote a book called the mask of command
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yes he did yeah and his whole argument is that when you're a leader you you have to put on
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sometimes you gotta you gotta put on this mask that you aren't necessarily want to put on right
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but you have to do it to get the job done do you think that's true yeah i do and but i i i don't
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think i think it's painting with too broad a brush i love keegan's work and and the mask of command is
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was one of is i can reach out and touch it right now it's it's one of the books i read regularly
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but here's here's my experience when i was growing up and and studying leaders by looking at them
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i was convinced at a young age that these guys weren't real people they were automatons they were
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they were something that was carved out of solid granite somewhere along in their history and they
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didn't have a human side so i i went that way and as i began to look and as i began to study and as i
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began to know these people i discovered that yeah they're human they're people just like me and they
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have the same concerns and they have the same fears they have the same irritants they have the
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same things that make them smile and make them happy well that was a that was a major revelation
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and then along came keegan and the mask man and i said aha i see they are putting on this mask of
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command now the the thing that i think makes keegan's estimation too broad a brush is that there are so
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many different masks of command and you have to you have to change your mask it can't be one thing that
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you pull down over your face and now i'm dale the leader it's you've got to you've got to know what
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mask to put on that will work in a specific situation let's see if i can give you an example
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the the mask that you put on in a firefight when it's up to you to maneuver when it's up to you to get
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people out and maneuvering and and moving under fire is one thing the mask that you need to put on
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when you are dealing with an individual who has made a mistake or who has screwed up and is and
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needs some discipline and you want to do that one-on-one you know praise in public and criticize
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in in private that's a different mask and so the good leader learns to have a bunch of those masks
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in his rucksack a bunch of those masks in his pocket and he can pull out the one that's required
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now granted as keegan points out they all have common denominators there there's a commonality
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between all of the masks but i think the really good leader the one who can be relied on in all
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situations has many masks of leadership at his command and and how do you learn to put on you
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know how do you learn to collect those masks and put them on in the right circumstance well that's
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the hard part you learn that the first element is to learn that different masks are needed once you've
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done that you've got to go about trying to develop different masks and you do that through study you do
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that through trial and error you do that by watching other people succeed or screw up and you say well
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that's that's mask that that guy is wearing won't work that sucks like a hoover vacuum cleaner there's no
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way i'm gonna do that so that all of that experience shapes your masks and then the key is to know when to put
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them on and that many times depends not only on the situation but on the individual you see leadership
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is is not only about influencing people to do your will and accomplish a mission it's about knowing who
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those people are and what they require for you to make them want to do your will right and i think
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you're also trying to convince yourself right as a leader oh yeah yeah the the biggest mask is the
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one that you wear when you're looking in the mirror right i i remember this this may sound dramatic but
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it's true so i'm just going to relate it to you on the on the day at quantico virginia on the day that
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i had been through officer candidate school and i'd been through the basic school and i was going to
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get commissioned i remember that morning getting up and getting my dress uniform ready to go down and
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fall fall in the formation and be commissioned along with all the other candidates and i looked i was
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shaving and i looked myself in the mirror and i said you know when the day comes that you can't look
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your people in the eye and say follow me it is necessary that we die when that day comes it's the day
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you're not leading anymore and you should quit yeah that's powerful so it's interesting about your
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career so you served in the marines in vietnam you served in berut last but then after your military
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service you got started working in hollywood and what you did is you started a consulting company to
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show filmmakers on how to make war movies more realistic so i'm curious what were wrong what was
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wrong with hollywood war movies that you thought that there needed to be a better way well i i'll i'll
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redirect your question for a moment to say that a lot of what i've accomplished in motion pictures and
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television entertainment industry is because when you're ignorant you can do a lot of things people
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tell you you can't do and that was that was certainly my case when when i retired um i milled around
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doing several things and trying to decide what it was that i really wanted to do what what could i bring
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to the table and there was all the standard stuff you know go be a security specialist or go be a cop
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but i'd been shot too many times to you know want to work on the mean streets carrying a weapon and so i
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i began to you know a great period of self-interest of introspection and um the the thing that just jumped
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out at me was that you're a movie fan die i mean you've seen practically every military movie there
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is and i think that was true at the time and the common denominator there was that they all pissed
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me off or most of them pissed me off they just weren't who they weren't a representation in the
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popular media which i knew has huge influence on societies movies and television have a huge influence
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on societies and i said here we are being represented as soldiers sailors airmen marines coast guardsmen
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in those popular media and it's wrong we we don't act that way we don't do that kind of thing and
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wouldn't it be more exciting and more insightful and more educational in this vastly popular media
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if we were depicted correctly warts and all and so that's when the the bulb began to glow dimly over
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my head and i said you know what's what's wrong here and i began to see i began to watch credits roll
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and i would see captain jimmy umptefratz u.s army retired in the end credits and he was listed as the
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military technical advisor and i said well what's wrong with that guy how does he let him get away with this
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stuff and so i decided to come to hollywood and as i said when you're ignorant you just do things
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and i began to try to investigate i began to look around and i began to what why are we depicted so
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badly why can't we get it right and what i discovered essentially was a was a what i call hubris on the part
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of hollywood there was an opinion that and this was post vietnam so a lot of that shadow still hung over
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public opinion what i discovered was that producers and directors and writers simply had no knowledge
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very very few of them in fact you could probably count them on one hand it had any military experience
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whatsoever and what they did have was kind of a negative experience because of the period they may
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or may not have served so i said well there's the problem they don't understand or if they're being
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told something they have absolutely no inclination to listen to it or pay attention to it that's why
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they get these guys in as military advisors and then they you know pay them five hundred dollars a week
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and have them sit in a chair and they wake them up when they want to know which side the ribbons go on
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but they don't get into who we are how we act how we react how we relate to each other and i said well
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there's the problem someone's got to teach them and i fell back put my leader mask on and i said well
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the key here is training we've got to take these young actors and we've got to put them in our shoes
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make them walk the mile that we've walked in our combat boots and if we can do that they'll get an
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insight they'll get they'll get a close and personal look at who we are and how we act and how we relate
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to each other and that can't help but improve the performances so that was my theory and i began to
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try to sell it to hollywood well that was uh to to understate the case that was a an uphill battle
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i mean i i talked to people and i said look i have a better way to make war movies i'm worth more to
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you than telling you which uniform is right and telling you that you shouldn't carry an m16 in world
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war ii i've i've got more to bring to table here i can help you train these actors and you'll get
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brilliant performances and of course essentially what the attitude was was look two things the first
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is we've made war movies for years and made zillions of dollars and and why should we pay you money to
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change what we think works that was attitude one attitude two was look you spent most of your life in
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the military so automatically by definition you can't be creative you can't understand drama you
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can't understand how movies are made you can't understand these things and i knew that was false
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i knew that was wrong i did understand and i you know i wasn't a great dramatist or a great writer at
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the time but i knew what was right and what was wrong and i knew that human beings can correct things
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and so it was it was a real fight brett and i i was frankly after about a year i was about to give
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it up i was running out of money and running out of patience and an interesting thing happened i saw a
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little notice i had learned by this time to read the trade papers daily variety and hollywood reporter
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and that sort of thing and i saw a little notice that said that a heretofore relatively unknown writer
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director by the name of oliver stone was going to do a movie about vietnam based on his own experience
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as a combat infantryman in vietnam and i said look if i can get to this guy he'll understand it and i
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went through a series of machinations uh talking to writers and i was in i was desperate to find a way
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to get to this guy where i could get by the gatekeepers and the agents and the representatives and
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the managers and all the other nonsense that surrounds celebrities and uh i was i was able to
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actually get stone's home phone number and uh i that was a saturday night and i sunday morning i called
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him and i pitched him i did my best two minute drill you know and had it been anybody else he probably
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would have hung up and had me arrested but but stone said well that's interesting let's talk and we did
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i explained what i thought was wrong with the war movies and how the performances could be improved
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based on training like he and i had had as soldiers and marines and he bought it and the shortest part
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of a long story is he gave me 33 actors some of whom and none of whom were were big names then but are
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now he gave me johnny depp and charlie sheen and tom berringer and willem defoe forrest whitaker and a
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bunch of others and i i took them into the jungles of the philippines where they lived with me for three
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weeks and they humped and they fought and they sweated and they strained just like we did in vietnam
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and at the end of that period when i brought them down out of the jungle they were who oliver and i were
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when we were 19 in combat and we made this little movie called platoon brought it home and lo and
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behold it won four academy awards including best picture and oliver was kind enough to recognize me
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as having been a big part of that great film and at that point all of those people who were throwing
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me out of their offices began to call and they said look we think you may have had a point there
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will you come and work on this film and that film and now it's been 50 some film and television
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projects since that time and and i continue to wear the mask of the leader and i continue to
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improve on my method and and it has it has grown and blossomed kind of like topsy and i think i think
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it will continue because i've taught a lot of people how to do this and you know i'm i'm very serious
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about getting current veterans involved in it and showing them how to do it using their experience
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in the creative endeavors and it seems to be i seem to be getting a little traction after 25 or 30 years
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well that's really interesting when these guys go through the boot camp do like they do they does
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the way they carry themselves change like they actually carry themselves like a soldier absolutely
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and it's that that i pay attention to you see you can you can train practically anybody to walk and
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talk and carry the weapon and wear the gear and look like he knows what he's doing but you you need to
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get into his heart and into his guts and into his mind so that he understands that so that he retains
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the experience and the experience changes him and it really does i mean one of the one of the most
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rewarding things in the world to me is after a certain period of time in the training i see these
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changes once again i'm raising other people's children and i see them change and i see them carry
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themselves differently most importantly i see them relate to each other differently they have learned
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through that experience that despite their their previous opinion the sun does not rise and set on
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their ass i mean the world is not all about them and what swirls around them they learn that they're
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part of a team and that they must rely on the guy next to them and the guy next to them must be able
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to rely on them and that's a profound change especially in young actors it sounds like you're teaching
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these guys how to put on masks as well in order to to do the role i mean it's the same thing you're
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doing with soldiers you're doing to these actors yes i think i think that's exactly right and that was
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the success of my method there was up until i started it uh there was an opinion that well look it's acting
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we don't need all that in-depth understanding well i knew that was false that was nonsense that was bs
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they do need that understanding in order to bring that sort of thing to their performance on screen
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and it turned out i was correct and they weren't which is which is a gratifying thing at this point
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besides platoon what other films have you consulted on oh uh so many of them it it would it would take
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all of our time to talk about it but i but for instance born on the 4th of july band of brothers
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the pacific saving private ryan and and many of them that aren't that high profile but uh but i do
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them regularly right now the classics you know the new classics i'm curious are there any pre dale die
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war movies that you think are actually good yeah sure i mean i i love the the little efforts that were
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that were made by guys who who actually were veterans i love sam fuller's steel helmet a little
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two hundred and fifty thousand dollar korean war movie that's a that's a tour de force about
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leadership and and small unit integrity i love the bridges of toko ri i think they got that one right
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and there there are a bunch of them but that said there are fewer in the old method than there are now
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in the new method right well and besides consulting you've actually you know consulting behind the camera
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you've actually starred in movies as well so what movies can we find dale die in well you uh a bunch
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of them i guess it's it's interesting and it was oliver stone to blame for all of this he saw me
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training and he said you know you need to play the company commander in platoon captain harris
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and i said really and he says i don't know anything about acting and he said you're a natural
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just be you and i did and and the interesting thing about it was that critics actually kind of
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singled me out and said whoever that guy is uh he was really convincing and that kind of led to
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other parts and uh you know i've i've been in oh it's got to be 20 or 30 films i'm usually the guy
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who shows up and explains the jeopardy in military terms and then goes away and then in act three i come
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and congratulate everybody on how well they did or pin a few medals you can find me in saving private
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ryan and you can find me as colonel sink in uh band of brothers and a bunch of performances one of my
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i loved i love to play real people so that i can do the research and i can dig in on the character
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and that's what i did with colonel sink the ceo of the 506 parachute infantry regiment in in band of
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brothers and i i loved playing general leonard wood to tom berringer's teddy roosevelt in uh the
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rough riders uh which was a tnt made for made for television tnt movie and i don't know i i don't
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want to sit here and and read my resume right right no it's impressive it's it's amazing i think it's a
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good example of not pigeonholing yourself and looking at the experience you have in and seeing the
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different places you can go with it well i have a i have a real low tolerance for boredom and i've
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always been that way if i i'm always wanting to do something or or i'll see something that sparks my
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interest and i say you know maybe i could do that and i'll jump over and try that acting was that way
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and and worked out terrifically but writing i've always been a storyteller and and i love telling
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stories i love entertaining and i decided you know i'm pretty facile with the english language
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maybe i should write this stuff down and i did and i think this point i've published about 13 novels
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12 or 13 of them and they've they've gotten great interest they're all military books of course i write
00:27:29.160
what i know but they they have been really popular they've they've jumped out i they were so popular in
00:27:35.460
fact that what i did was i started my company is called warriors incorporated and so i branched
00:27:42.200
an effort off and we now have what's called warriors publishing group and we've got i don't know 24 or 25
00:27:49.380
titles out there very very high profile titles we've we're publishing john del vecchio's 13th valley
00:27:56.400
and in a number of really great books and that's that's worked out fine i'm now branched off into
00:28:03.220
writing films and directing them this year i hope to start my first my first feature directorial
00:28:09.380
effort in a world war ii film called no better place to die which essentially will be the airborne
00:28:15.220
version of saving private ryan where ryan focused on the the beach assaults the surface assaults
00:28:21.300
my story focuses on the airborne assault the people who jumped in before the beaches
00:28:25.780
and our beach assaults started and it's it's going great tom hanks is executive producing it for me
00:28:32.280
and and so i think we're going to shoot that film this summer so uh who knows who knows what's right
00:28:39.340
i have no idea it sounds great and so you're going to do the the military training so you're like how
00:28:44.000
does that go so it's three weeks a month how long do you usually have those guys it it all depends on
00:28:48.700
how much the the producers of the film will give me what i ask for is a minimum of two weeks
00:28:54.140
because it the method really captain die's method if you will is full immersion and i have to do
00:29:02.640
in two weeks what normally takes 10 weeks or 12 weeks in basic training so i have to eliminate a lot
00:29:11.080
of things and i have to focus hard on a few other things and we have to work 24 hours around the clock
00:29:15.820
it's it's very hard very intense very difficult but i have done it in as short as a week the the
00:29:23.440
longer they're willing to give me uh in what they they euphemistically term rehearsal time the longer
00:29:31.280
they're willing to give me the better the result and that's what i usually say i said look you can
00:29:36.040
you can say i've got three days and i'll do what i can but if you really want this to sing if you
00:29:42.200
really want these guys to come out of there knowing the characters and able to portray them
00:29:46.500
beautifully you need to give me more time and and it's always a negotiation and always an argument
00:29:51.900
do you shave their heads like when they come in like boot camp it depends uh if that's required
00:29:57.200
yes absolutely i do and that's always a a source of much uh crying and pissing and moaning but if if it's
00:30:06.940
required then absolutely i do if it's not required i make them get that standard haircut that for the
00:30:14.580
day and the period and the time and that's where we go so yeah it sounds like you know the way the
00:30:20.420
way you become something is you have to act it out like you have to do it there's all this talk about
00:30:24.880
being inauthentic right but sometimes that's what you have to do to become that thing you want to be
00:30:29.420
sometimes you have to act out and then eventually by acting it out you become what you want to be
00:30:33.540
look it's that's that's right brett and and it's you know it's not brain surgery if i can sit and
00:30:42.580
talk to you all day long about what a cookie tastes like and i can be the world's greatest
00:30:48.940
descriptor and storyteller about that cookie and you're going to sit there and you're going to say
00:30:55.000
okay i i understand all about that cookie but nothing nothing is going to let you relate
00:31:03.080
what that cookie is about until you've bitten into it and that's the theory that's the theory
00:31:09.720
well dale this has been a great conversation but where can people go to learn more about your work
00:31:13.440
well i'm i'm all over the internet despite the fact that i don't want to be i am you can look up
00:31:20.600
warriors incorporated on the internet you can look up no better place to die which is the name of my new
00:31:25.640
film it's all over facebook you can read my books they're all available on amazon and look up warriors
00:31:33.580
incorporated we've got a terrific website that'll tell you who we are what we are and what we're
00:31:37.880
trying to do and that that's that's very simple brett there's one agenda i want to through my efforts
00:31:44.940
in the popular media all of the popular media i want to shine some long overdue light
00:31:53.280
on the men and women who've worn our military uniform and whose service and sacrifice so much
00:32:00.860
for us every day that's a great mission dale die thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure
00:32:05.720
brett my pleasure thanks very much we'll do this again when we can my guest today was dale die he's
00:32:10.800
the owner of warriors inc you can find more information about his work at dale die.com also check
00:32:15.380
out our show notes at aom.is slash dale die that's d-y-e where you can find links to resources
00:32:19.860
we can delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness
00:32:35.800
podcast for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at
00:32:39.160
artofmanliness.com if you enjoy the podcast i appreciate if you take one minute here's view
00:32:42.780
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00:32:46.560
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00:32:50.020
until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly