Long before the first day on the set of "Band Of Brothers," executive producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and co-executive producer Tony To agreed that telling the story of Easy Company with historical accuracy and authenticity was of utmost importance. To that end, Capt. Dale Dye, USMC (ret.) joined the crew as the military advisor, responsible for turning actors into soldiers and helping directors "get it right" from a military point of view.

After a full career in the U. S. Marines, including extensive combat experience in Vietnam and Beirut, Capt. Dye went to Hollywood. A lifelong military film buff, Captain Dye recognized what passes for combat on film is often what he calls "complete nonsense – a dishonor!" He set out on a mission to change this state of affairs by offering his services to any director who would listen, eventually landing a job with Oliver Stone on the production of "Platoon" – the start of a second career.

Having worked with Spielberg on "Saving Private Ryan," Capt. Dye was a natural choice for "Band of Brothers." Describing his role as the "military guru" on set, Captain Dye said his "important responsibility is to train these actors to be true successors, to do honor to the real men of Easy Company – to whom we owe a great deal in our world today – by portraying them correctly, with great honor and panache." In addition to his advisory role, Captain Dye appeared onscreen as Colonel Sink, commanding officer of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of 101st Airborne Division.

The actors endured a grueling two-week boot camp where they learned the basics, from how to wear a uniform and stand at attention, to sophisticated field tactics and parachute jump training. The average day was 16 hours long, beginning at 5:00 a.m., rain or shine, with strenuous calisthenics and a three-to-five-mile run, followed by hours of tactical training, including weapons handling and jump preparation. The men ate twice a day if they hadn’t upset Captain Dye. There were night operations, foxhole digs and guard duty; they crawled through mud, slept on cold, wet ground, and had no showers. The highlight and culmination of boot camp was a trip to the Royal Air Force Base at Brize Norton, the training site for British paratroopers, where each actor jumped from the 40-foot jump tower and earned his wings.

The emphasis during boot camp was on living strictly in the 1940s. No modern language or modern slang was permitted, and the men were known by their character names. Real names, and real life, ceased to exist. This mindset carried over into production, where cast and crew alike referred to the men by character. By the end of the first week of training, the actors were "so isolated, so dependent upon each other, that just to survive they ceased to be themselves and became their characters."

Captain Dye believes it essential to be hard on the actors in boot camp, because "no actor who hasn’t walked a mile or two in a soldier’s boots can adequately emotionally and psychologically portray a soldier. It’s important to have some truth, for these men to be able to say, 'I remember what exhaustion is, because I was exhausted. I remember what it’s like to take a bead on a person and pull the trigger, because I did that. I understand what it’s like to slide in the mud and be absolutely filthy and stink like a goat, because I’ve been there.' That was the life those men lived in World War II, and if our actors live it, they can only tell the truth."

An important part of the day was "stand down", usually after the evening meal, where the actors had a no-holds-barred opportunity to ask anything. Questions like "What’s it feel like to have a morphine injection?," "What does shrapnel look like?" and "What’s it like when a buddy right next to you gets killed?" were instrumental to the actors’ understanding of combat life. When Capt. Dye asked the actors what they thought about the last question, they expressed the expected anguish, sadness and numbness. Captain Dye’s response: "There’s only one right answer: You feel elation, you feel joy because it wasn’t you. And that momentary elation is what causes survivor’s guilt – you’re happy your buddy caught the bullet, not you, even if he was your best buddy. It’s that kind of insight that truly helps the men move into the combat aspect of this thing, and that’s what shows up on the screen."

By the end of boot camp, the actors had gone through an extraordinary metamorphosis. Dye says, they “understood about tenacity, hardship, discipline and pushing themselves to do more than they ever thought they could do. They took pride in themselves, and began to realize what ordinary men are capable of. They lost their fear of weapons and uniforms. They understood what it’s like to live together in a brotherhood, and they truly became brothers."

Captain Dye’s responsibilities did not end with the actors. With a mandate from the producers to make it authentic, not pretty, Captain Dye kept a careful eye on everything from uniform details to the size of an explosion that happens with a particular grenade or shell, reinforcing the fact that "World War II combat was very low-tech compared to what we know today. Back to basics, with eyeball-to-eyeball killing, not with radios and fully automatic weapons and guided missiles like today."

Helping to make "Band Of Brothers" was a very rewarding experience for Captain Dye. "It’s rare to have an opportunity to do something which is impactful, which will have a legacy, and "Band Of Brothers" is such a project," he notes. "Through it, audiences come to appreciate the extraordinary sacrifice that the American soldier in World War II made, which makes this world what it is today. The peace and freedom that most of the world enjoys is a direct result of the service and sacrifices made by the men of Easy Company and others like them, and I believe in my heart that we can make the audience understand that. And if we can do that, we’ve lit a torch for another generation, and that’s an important legacy."