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I grew up in Hollywood during WWII, and my mother was afraid that my father was going to be drafted because she didn't think we were going to be able to live on army pay. She didn't want to have to get a job, so she decided to put me to work, and that's how I got started in the movies.

One of the first movies my dad took me to see was the original 'Road Warrior.' And I was kind of raised on the action movies of that era: 'The Terminator' and 'Die Hard' and, of course, all of the 'Star Wars' movies.

I was born in a family with a strong military background, so I chose to be a soldier.

I sort of became infatuated with soldiers. I got to know some of them and got a little perturbed with Hollywood making a spectacle out of them and making them look like they have screwed up somehow.

I had seen the films out of World War II, the great 82nd Airborne, the 101st, and all of those of you in the greatest generation and the service that you had provided.

The great actors we had came from the actor-manager theaters. Not only did they create a team, they were the generals working with the soldiers.

The male role models I had all seemed to have been in the military. My father served in the army. My uncle was in the Marine Corps. Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. There weren't any career soldiers in my family, but when I was young it seemed like a way of arriving at adulthood.

I'm pretty upfront about my love and admiration for the military. One of the perks of making movies is that you get to sort of follow your own passions, and I believe quite passionately that we don't pay enough attention and respect to our veterans. Not just our wounded veterans, but all veterans.