Dye spent a total of 13 years as an enlisted Marine, rising to the rank of Master Sergeant before being appointed a warrant officer in 1976. During his 1967-to-19-to-1970 tours of duty, he was attached to two different battalions of the 1st Marine Division. He is a grunt wannabe." During three tours of duty in South Vietnam, he participated in 31 combat operations. "He feels like he owes something to those people. "Dye's heart is with the grunts," said Bob Rea, who worked with Dye as a combat correspondent during the worst of Tet. As a result of his actions, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V" for heroism. During other engagements, he exposed himself to enemy fire to rescue several wounded Marines and a Navy corpsman. Although he was wounded, Dye exposed himself to intense enemy fire to retrieve ammunition for the machine gun to help hold off PAVN soldiers during an all-night firefight.
The machine gun position was isolated forward of the remainder of the battalion. On March 18, 1968, Dye replaced an assistant machine gunner who had been killed. During the next week, the battalion engaged in a number of firefights with units of the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Dye persuaded the battalion commander to let him accompany the battalion as a war correspondent. While recuperating in a rear area, the 2nd Battalion 3rd Marines-the unit he had traveled with-was preparing for Operation Ford. ĭye was wounded during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Dye developed an immense respect for the grunts who took the brunt of any action. As a correspondent, he saw more battles than many low-ranking infantrymen. He sent stories to military publications and to the hometown newspapers of fellow Marines. He became one of a very few Marine combat correspondents. Officers in the unit noticed his keen observational skills and literary interest, and encouraged him to reclassify as a combat correspondent. His unit was among the first to deploy to Vietnam in 1965. Naval Academy, but after failing the entrance exam three times ("My math and science skills were weak, and my English skills were huge") and having exhausted his family's meager funds getting through military academy, he enlisted in the U.S. Military career ĭye had hoped to attend the U.S. Joseph's Military Academy in Chicago and the Missouri Military Academy in Mexico, Missouri. He looked up the Battle of Iwo Jima that night and made up his mind to join the U.S. One particular story about man-to-man fighting told by a Marine who said he had fought in the Pacific Theater piqued Dale's attention. There he heard war stories from World War II veterans. Louis and took Dale with him as he visited working-class taverns. His father was a liquor salesman in and around St. Dye was born on October 8, 1944, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Dale Adam and Della Grace (née Koehler) Dye.
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