Boot Camp

Before shooting for Starship Troopers began, the principle actors and a few select extras were taken on an intense two week boot camp, carried out by ex-Marine and Viet Nam Veteran, Captain Dale Dye, to prepare them with basic military drills and tactics.

The actors were given authentic boot camp training by Captain Dye, and were drilled until they gained the mind set of real Cap Troopers. A few select extras were taken into the boot camp as well as the principles, so when they graduated, they were given their own squads of extras to command on location.

Jon Davison, ST Producer

"Dale Dye was the military advisor on the picture, and basically it was his job to take the actors and to take the extras and make them look like soldiers on screen. He had formed this group called 'Warriors INC', and the first film he did I think was a picture called "Platoon". After that he was quite in demand and is sort of a Mr. Hollywood Military movie God. He was an ex-Marine Corps Veteran, who served in Viet Nam. He takes it very seriously and was often annoyed at us for not following the strict Marine Corps line on various things.

Paul Sammon, Science Fiction Historian

"'Warrior's Incorporated' and Dye's whole reason for being is to set up accelerated compacted compressed intense periods of training, like little mini boot camps for actors and performers before a film starts.

It was all on location in Casper, Wyoming. They took the primary people out and showed them maneuvers, how to handle weapons, bearing tactics and that kind of thing.

Captain Dye, who had trained the primary cast, also hand-picked four or five of the extras, and put them in the boot camp at the same time. Once they had graduated, he put them in charge of their own squads of platoons of extras. It was hilarious to watch on location, because you'd see twenty kids in these horribly heavy suffocating costumes, with their weapons at the ready close-order drilling to lunch, and they were deadly serious about it. They really enjoyed it. These were kids from Montana and Wyoming, who were giving a hundred and ten percent and were actually living the role of a cap trooper in all its harshness."

Jake Busey - 'Ace Levy'

"We went to Wyoming and were there for about two weeks. We were in a real boot camp situation in the middle of nowhere. We did field training exercises everyday for two weeks, and he really trained us well - got us in a mind set that was totally different. By the time the two weeks had gone by and the actual crew for the film showed up there, we were all sitting around looking at the crew thinking 'Oh you civilian idiots decide to show up huh - you're nothing - who are you!'. We were, in essence, soldiers for real."