Ropeyarn Sunday “Sea Stories” and Open Trackbacks
September 6th, 2006 by xformed
Welcome back and remember: Inline tracks backs are working! C’mon…show me your work!
Today’s “sea story” is not one of humor, but one of finding out I was in the presense of a man who almost was one of the original Project Mercury astronauts….
It’s a repeat, but from my earlier days of blogging, and a story I think is worth sharing once again. Capt Hawkins was quite a man. I include why such a fine leader never made flag rank, either….
Posted in the comments by Station Commando as a “war story” (he’s in the Army):
Being that I’m in the Army I don’t have any sea stories but here’s a good story along the same lines as yours. When the movie Tears of the Sun was being filmed I was stationed in Hawaii (where they filmed the movie.)
We received a request for any black Infantrymen who we thought we could do without for a few weeks to go be extras for the movie. They wanted black soldiers because they were playing the Nigerian soldiers in the movie. Our company sent four people over. One of them returned later that day because the movie people didn’t think he had dark enough complexion to pass for a Nigerian soldier, the other three were accepted.
They were going to be working on the movie all day every day for about 4 weeks. About 2 days into it they kicked one of our guys back. This guy was the biggest, dumbest klutz you’ve ever seen. Whenever the movie people would film a scene he would always be falling down or losing his fake AK-47. In one scene where all the Nigerians run through a small river bed he actually ran the wrong way, realized he was going the opposite direction as everyone else, and then promptly dropped his rifle in the river and had if float away. While everybody else was charging ahead he was chasing his rubber rifle down the river, falling down the whole way.
They gave him his check and sent him on his way.
The rest of the guys got paid pretty well (about $700 a week if I remember right) and got to tell everyone they were in the movie. They did say that for all you hear about Bruce Willis supporting the troops he never once came and said a word to any of the guys there and they were instructed by someone with the movie that if they said anything to him, even in passing, they would be promptly fired.
They also said that Bruce Willis didn’t so much as run up a hill. They had the stunt double do anything that would result in so much as breaking a mild sweat. I guess that’s Hollywood for you.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 2:46 pm and is filed under "Sea Stories", History, Military, Military History, Navy, Open Trackbacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
September 7th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Being that I’m in the Army I don’t have any see stories but here’s a good story along the same lines as yours. When the movie Tears of the Sun was being filmed I was stationed in Hawaii (where they filmed the movie.)
We received a request for any black Infantrymen who we thought we could do without for a few weeks to go be extras for the movie. They wanted black soldiers because they were playing the Nigerian soldiers in the movie. Our company sent four people over. One of them returned later that day because the movie people didn’t think he had dark enough complexion to pass for a Nigerian soldier, the other three were accepted.
They were going to be working on the movie all day every day for about 4 weeks. About 2 days into it they kicked one of our guys back. This guy was the biggest, dumbest klutz you’ve ever seen. Whenever the movie people would film a scene he would always be falling down or losing his fake AK-47. In one scene where all the Nigerians run through a small river bed he actually ran the wrong way, realized he was going the opposite direction as everyone else, and then promptly dropped his rifle in the river and had if float away. While everybody else was charging ahead he was chasing his rubber rifle down the river, falling down the whole way.
They gave him his check and sent him on his way.
The rest of the guys got paid pretty well (about $700 a week if I remember right) and got to tell everyone they were in the movie. They did say that for all you hear about Bruce Willis supporting the troops he never once came and said a word to any of the guys there and they were instructed by someone with the movie that if they said anything to him, even in passing, they would be promptly fired.
They also said that Bruce Willis didn’t so much as run up a hill. They had the stunt double do anything that would result in so much as breaking a mild sweat. I guess that’s Hollywood for you.
September 9th, 2006 at 8:06 am
I can’t believe I mis-spelled sea.
September 9th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Corrected…:)