"Yes, and I hope you see me in some more," was Dye's enthusiastic response.

"You can't snuff my candle out, I'm still going."

At 66, Dye has a unique blend of military and movie-making experience.

Some people recognize him from his small acting roles as a war department colonel in Saving Private Ryan, or as Captain Harris in Platoon. Others may respect him as a highly decorated war veteran, possessing a Bronze Star for valor and three Purple Heart medals for wounds suffered in combat.

Dye served as a Marine for 20 years, enduring three tours to Vietnam, and one to Beirut and Lebanon. Dye retired in 1984, because he thought it was about time "to quit and let the young guys charge up."

After floundering for a year, Dye weighed his liabilities and assets and considered a career in the film industry.

Dye was military savvy, but also military movie savvy. But the military flicks Dye watched were not true-to-life.

"They upset me, they pissed me off," Dye said. "They didn't represent what I had been through. They didn't represent the people I knew. They were full of these Hollywood clichés."

Dye said he knew from experience that the stories Hollywood was washing out were a thousand times more interesting than what they were producing. So Dye embarked on a mission to set Hollywood straight.

At first Dye said he had a hard time selling his theory. "In order to really portray what a military man feels and what he thinks and how he acts and his relationships to his buddies, you have to have some inkling of what that really is," Dye said.

It was 1985 when Dye ran into an up-and-coming director and former combat infantryman in Vietnam named Oliver Stone.

Stone bought into his theory and welcomed Dye aboard as the military advisor for the actors of his next project, a low-budget film called Platoon.

Stone introduced Dye to, at that time, no-names like Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker, and Charlie Sheen.

"I said (to Stone) 'if you will give me three weeks to take these people into the jungles of the Philippines, and make them live like real soldiers, and act like real soldiers and behave like real soldiers, by the time I pull them out of there, we'll have real deals,'" Dye recalled.

That was the making of Dale Dye's career as a military adviser for actors and directors. After 72 film and television appearances and contributions to four Academy Award-winning films, Dye continues to lead a rigorous work schedule.

But when Dye got the call from Wild West Days' event coordinator Bill Pakinkis, he cleared his hectic calendar to make room for a trip to the living history town he had never had the opportunity to visit.

"Back when we shot the film Starship Troopers in Dead Wood City, N.D., that's when I got the Western history bug," Dye said.

Dye flew in for the weekend and said the town has given him treatment suitable for a king.

Dye said he has seen a fair share of "plastic people" in his years living in Los Angeles and New York.

"You come to a place like Tombstone or Deadwood and what you see is real America," Dye said. "It's absolute magic."

Many visitors thought Dye's presence added a little extra sparkle to the scene.
Luke Gosnell, who serves in the Army at Fort Huachuca, was volunteering with the Arizona Rangers at the event.

Gosnell is a proud alma mater of the Missouri Military Academy, the same, small boarding school Dye attended as a high school student.

Gosnell described Dye as "one of the legends" of the academy.

According to Gosnell, there are always movies coming out that do not come close to depicting the reality of wartime situations.

Two recent duds in Gosnell's opinion were the Hurt Locker and the Expendables.

"My wife and I were just talking about how we need to go to Hollywood and help them fix these movies," Gosnell said.

Unfortunately, Dye cannot be there to dispense his military knowledge to every cast of actors in need.

"He is respected for keeping the accuracy in Hollywood," Gosnell said of Dye.

The Wild West Detachment Marine Corps League of Tombstone sees Dye as a war hero and as a military voice in Hollywood.

"I would venture to say that more than a quarter of Tombstone's population are military, former or active," Pakinkis said.

The Wild West Days' purpose is to "make as much money as we can give to the USO," said Frank Sutherland, a charter member of the Marine Corps League and Iwo Jima veteran.

The weekend-long event offered a number of attractions but the draw was Dye.

"Soldiers see me as their representative in Hollywood," Dye said. "I'm humbled by that."