Book on production of "the Pacific"

[bratwurstdimsum]

Guys,

I'm going to be publishing a book (hopefully within) the next 3 months of my part in the Pacific tele-mini-series coming out in March 2010, it's strictly unofficial and a mainly humorous look at being a soldier-extra in the show with all its complexities, excitement, and horrible realities of war.

Most of the book will center on the Marine Corp attack D-day+1 to 2 at Peleliu Beach and boot camp training by Capt Dale Dye's team of warriors inc.

It is illustrated throughout and will be available in hard or soft cover depending on demand and will be over 100 pages when completed. I will only charge the price it costs me to print as I won't do it for profit due to legal reasons. Publishing is just something I've always wanted to do.

PM me if there is any interest here and i'll send up some more details. I'll attach an abstract shortly.

Cheers

Jeff

[bratwurstdimsum]

Here you go.

This is from our first day on set.

Our group of soldiers were called "B Corp" to supplement a more experienced group of weapons company or "A Corp" soldiers. The "A Corp" guys had been there 6 months and were considered to be pretty hard core.

The following is what happens when a group of battle hardened vets get mixed up with a bunch of layabouts on their first day on set:

We all filed onto the two waiting minibuses, and were quickly driven up to the set via a series of interconnecting dirt roads. We arrived at a clearing on the side of the road and disembarked. I found out during this time why the military build their own vehicles. Civilian vehicles (especially ones of the budget rent-a-car breed) are totally unsuited to transporting soldiers. We bumped our helmeted heads, on the doorway and ceiling of the bus, totally misjudging our height. We got our rifles and webbing caught on people, doors, seats, and seat belt buckles. Our boots had large studded nails protruding from the soles so as we moved around, we scratched everything that wasn’t covered and made a terrific racket. These studs (called hobnails) would trap mud as well, so when we got onto the bus, we brought that onto the floors as well, which led to it getting onto the seats transforming the gleaming white van into this steel bucket of poo.

Getting out of the bus, we then had to march, single file about a hundred metres to a small open camouflaged marquee area on the left side of a dirt track, it was already a hot, dry day and a small cloud of dust had formed from our marching covering us in more dust. There, we met the “A Corp” Japanese whom we’d already caught a fleeting glance earlier in the change rooms.

It wasn’t long before we made our presence felt.

Whereas the A Corp Japanese sat diligently cross-legged engaging in small games of strategy or exercising, our B Corp troops, once we arrived, sighed loudly and dropped to the ground like we’d just finished the Bataan death march. Some of our guys wandered here and there, oooing and aaaahing at the sights and sounds of the movie set, joked and generally acting like the green recruits we were.

I heard a shout in Japanese not long after and it was immediately obvious that one of us had provoked the Ire of a sergeant.
When we got to the scene of the commotion, Sgt Yutaka was giving one of our B Corp guys a severe dressing down. It appears the extra took all his webbing off,

dropped it along with his rifle and left them on the ground unattended. In any other world this would be not such a bad thing but in the world of the military, every man was responsible for his kit and his gun and they protected him from harm and death…at least that’s what he was being told by the Sergeant.

After a one minute tirade, he ordered the offender to do fifty pushups. This clearly did not sit well with our B Corp man who obviously thought the job he’d signed up for was going to be like shooting another Baskin Robbins ice cream commercial.

Ego bruised but not defeated, he whined a challenge:

“Come on, you wouldn’t do push ups for something as stupid as leaving your stuff on the floor!”

Yutaka went into classic Banzai pose, the kind you see in any Japanese movie where the warrior looks surprised for a split second, then eyes become ablaze but still fixed onto his target. Without averting his gaze, he shouted a command in Japanese and as one, the twenty plus A Corp guys got onto their feet from whatever they were doing, stood to attention and shouted “Hai!” (yes), before leaping onto the ground and as one oiled machine started doing pushups. Yutaka towered over our extra now and demanded:

“Youa do pushups now!”

Clearly overwhelmed, with his young ego mashed into miso soup, he very slowly and reluctantly began his push ups.

As amusing as this seems from the page, I’m sure I speak for most of the B Corp boys when I say that we were all appalled that one of our own were being embarrassed in front of the whole movie set, even if it was his own fault that he had been an absolute nob and got himself into trouble with the Sergeant. I didn’t even know the guy apart from a brief introduction earlier, but I found myself on the ground doing the push ups as well; providing the psychological support for him to reach the fifty mark.
He eventually made it after much effort, with two more of us helping him along. He then collected his kit and walked off in a huff. I don’t ever remember seeing him again.

Nothing much else happened for the Japanese soldiers that day. There were plenty of action sequences being shot with the Marines though. It appeared that they were shooting a scene where they were breaking through some trees into open ground defended by some stout Imperials. I remember a Sherman tank, with its back facing us, pushing through the woods heading (presumably) towards the camera searching for an unseen enemy. Following alongside, there were Marines who paused every now and then to deliver some machine gun fire and mortar rounds.

After a short pause, there were four loud thumping noises and a mountain of dirt rose up into the sky. The debris seemed to move into the air in slow-motion and then just hang there as if time got suspended. Once the dirt started landing however, it just kept raining down like a biblical plague for thirty seconds afterwards.

Not long afterwards, a voice was heard on a megaphone about fifty metres away announcing that the take had been successful and that they were breaking for lunch. It was kind of bizarre that the bit that was out of place by this point in my day was not all the paraphernalia of war, but the Hollywood production crew that ran it.

Indeed, poring out of the same opening in the woods that the tank had just driven into and delivered its payload of death were a sea of production crew wearing denim jeans, baseball caps, polo shirts and sombreros. If that wasn’t strange enough, a few Japanese “A Corp” extras were now coming out of the set alongside the crew. From the burnt uniforms, bullet holes, bloody and gaping wounds in their abdomen, arms and face they appeared to be zombies rising from the dead.

One soldier had what was called a “prosthetic” applied to his face. It was a latex piece in the shape of a road kill hamburger that was glued on to his face and painted over to make his face look like his left cheek was ripped off nearly up to his ear. What made the whole scene hilarious was the fact that this obviously restricted the movement of his mouth, especially when attempting to eat Lunch. One of the catering girls handed him a large Panini sandwich. He tried eating it normally but could not get his teeth around the large roll. In the end he had to settle on jamming the Panini sideways through the side of his mouth that he could open. Any other way and he would’ve torn the prosthetic.
The rest of the day found us all lying under the marquee waiting for a call to the set that never came. At 4:30 pm we got told to get back on the busses, clean up and perform the whole wardrobe process in reverse before getting back into our civilian clothes and going home.

They obviously wanted us to be here a day earlier to get all our kit and weapons sorted out before the big day came.

[bratwurstdimsum]

Book is due out sometime in June, it will be around US$20-25 + shipping, its 120 pages with about 50+ photos

Follow my progress updates here (you don't need an account)

www.twitter.com/Soldiermemoirs

[Brukat193337]

Looking forward to reading your book when it comes out.

[chrischa]

I like what I've read.

Chris.

[Dietrich Maerz]

I told you not to use Microsoft Word, didn't I? Word is for children and underpaid secretaries - not for publishing! InDesign is the way to go!

Looks very nice so far!

[bratwurstdimsum]

Guys,

An update.

Book is about a month off printing, been speaking to Julia Dye, daughter and Manager of Warriors inc, Dale Dye's Military advisers group to the Pacific and I may be able to swing an introduction from Dale - its a bit short notice but finger's crossed.

Also thinking about hardback depending on demand.

Cheers

Jeff

[bratwurstdimsum]

Guys,

My book, "Memoirs of a Hollywood Soldier" has hit the printers. It is a 100 page novel about working as a Japanese extra on the set of the pacific. Think the show "Extras" combined with "Full metal jacket" and you will get an idea of what the novel is about. It has over 70 photos and has an intro by Dale Dye. Semper... Fi!

You will be able to place orders via my website now with a credit card or paypal:

http://jeffooi.bigcartel.com/

Alternately the book will soon be available from Hylands bookstore in Melbourne, Australia

Any issue or comments please PM me as you guys will be the first to try it!