Hollywood may be the fantasy capital of the world, but one man has made it his business to keep filmmakers from straying too far from reality.
Former Navy SEAL Harry Humphries has made sure that when actors spout military lingo, hold weapons or leap into action, they're doing it in a manner that matches what their characters might do in the real world. He's served as a technical adviser on "Pearl Harbor," "Enemy of the State," "Snake Eyes," "Con Air" and several TV shows. It's his job to see that an actor portraying a Delta Force member doesn't slip into the mannerisms of an Army Ranger.
Speaking from his home in Huntington Beach, Calif., Humphries explains, "For those of us who know, there's a thousand miles of difference ... In 'Pearl Harbor,' I had very little to do other than to make sure the guys knew how to handle a Springfield O3 bolt action weapon and not make it look like they were shooting an M1 Garand."
While he's happy with his work in those and other projects, Humphries is especially pleased to be associated with the new movie "Black Hawk Down." Adapted from Mark Bowden's non-fiction book, the film recalls an Oct. 3, 1993, raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. A group of Army Rangers and Delta Force members flew into the city to capture two key associates of Habr Gidr clan leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Because Aidid's troops had been hijacking aid shipments, they were endangering a United Nations effort to end a famine that had claimed the lives of 300,000 Somalis.
The mission depicted in "Black Hawk Down" became a 15-hour fire-fight that resulted in the deaths of 18 American soldiers and hundreds of Somalis. TV images of American casualties being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu led the Clinton administration to withdraw American troops from the region. Nonetheless, the forces successfully captured Aidid's subordinates, and the dead and wounded Americans were retrieved, preventing a far greater loss of life.
For Humphries, working as associate producer/military department head on the new film was a deeply personal assignment.
"I'm part of the old Vietnam group where people were spitting on us," he says. "I understand. I have empathy for proper representation of what happened on the battlefield. Those guys were heroes beyond belief, and they deserve to be remembered that way. The purpose of ('Black Hawk Down') is to set the record right, to show the real horror of what these guys went through, to make sure the world knows what really happened and not what the press would have you believe ... To say it was a military failure is absolutely ludicrous. It was victory. The real failure was a Clinton failure.
"If they had the air support that they were supposed to have instead of having the political leadership pulling it away from them it was simply giving them back two AC-130 gunships where they could call in appropriate gun fire to establish and reinforce their perimeter it would have been a walk in the park. The problem was the political leadership took it upon themselves to be military leaders. And as always when that happens, the military guy on the ground suffers."
Local ranger
To present a broader image of the battle, Humphries and the filmmakers consulted with a pair of retired colonels: Thomas Matthews, who was the Air Mission Commander in Mogadishu in 1993, and Lee Van Arsdale, who was with Delta Force. They also received assistance from Maj. Bill Butler, who is currently a student at the Command College at Fort Leavenworth.
"Major Butler is a part of the Ranger Regiment and was with the public affairs department in charge of the Ranger platoon that came to support the picture (on location in Morocco)," says Humphries. "He did a wonderful job of bringing over some of the best Rangers he could round up. The 75th Ranger Regiment set up a six-day training program for the actors. Twenty-two actors went to a Ranger indoctrination program at Fort Benning, Ga. It wasn't the (Ranger) course, but it was a gentleman's course designed for indoctrinating these guys into the Ranger brotherhood, the history of the Rangers, how they look, how they smell, and how they talk."
Contacted after a recent screening of the film in Mission, Kan., Butler recalls, "The actors were like sponges. They asked a lot of questions and were concerned about playing the Rangers accurately. We did as much as we could in a six-day period."
In addition, the Rangers provided support of a different type.
"All of the fast rope scenes and the helicopter scenes that you saw with troops in them, real Rangers were doing that," he explains.
While "Black Hawk Down" was made with Department of Defense cooperation, the often-graphically violent movie is hardly a whitewash of the dangers involved in urban combat.
"Every corner, every doorway, every window is a danger," Butler contends. "Three hundred sixty degree security is absolutely critical."
Humphries adds, "If you watch ('Black Hawk Down') again, the troops are covering all angles. There's always somebody at six o'clock; there's always somebody at nine o'clock; there's somebody at 3 o'clock and there's somebody at 12 o'clock ... There's something a thousand times worse about fighting in a city than fighting in a controlled area behind rocks and fields or in jungle where you've got cover. (In an open field), the guys in the north are good, and the guys in the south are bad, or vice versa. That's not so in this kind of a battle. Therefore, you've got a very hard, very real look at what street combat's all about."
'Leave no man behind'
While "Black Hawk Down" contains a much harsher depiction of warfare than a typical Hollywood movie, critics have responded warmly (it received a 75 percent approval rating from Rottentomatoes.com), and it topped the U.S. box office last weekend with a $35 million take.
Humphries praises, "In terms of the technical adviser who specializes in that sort of scenario, that was the best possible movie to be involved with: the best kind of mature director (Ridley Scott, "Gladiator"), and the attitude for realism on the part of (producer) Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott. They stood behind anything that was focusing on what really happens, what (soldiers) really do, how they do it and so on. That's what (consultants) do, and we were given a lot of authority in the making of 'Black Hawk.'"
Butler, too, found much to like in the film.
"It was an accurate depiction of the Rangers and the bravery they represent," he says.
If there was any doubt of the validity of the Rangers' code of not leaving a man behind, it was erased by Butler's actions during the screening. Shortly before the closing credits started, the projector stopped unexpectedly, and most of the audience (including critics and other film pundits) left. When the movie started rolling again, Butler returned to the nearly vacated theater and carefully scanned each line of text.
He says, "I just wanted to see if any of my buddies got in the credits."
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