‘Lt. Dan’ Visits VMI

Gary Sinise Speaks At Founders Day Events

The Virginia Military Institute corps of cadets held their annual Founder’s Day Parade on Friday, where they heard from a special guest – Academy Award-nominated actor Gary Sinise.

In addition to addressing the cadets, Sinise was also invited to speak at the VMI Foundation’s dinner celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Institute Society, a group of alumni, family, and friends of the institute who have made significant financial donations to VMI over the years.

The occasion marked the actor’s first visit to VMI, but it’s a place he’s wanted to visit for quite some time.

ACTOR and veterans advocate Gary Sinise speaks to the corps of cadets during the Founders Day Parade Friday. (VMI photo by H. Lockwood McLaughlin) “I jumped at the chance to come to speak to the corps and also for the Foundation event tonight,” he said to members of the media in an interview before the parade. “It’s great to be here on Founder’s Day.”

Sinise has had a prolific acting career in movies and television as well as on the stage. He’s appeared in films such as “Apollo 13,” “The Green Mile” and “Of Mice and Men,” and starred in television shows such as “CSI: New York” and “Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.”

But Sinise is probably best known for his role as Lt. Dan Taylor in the 1994 film “Forrest Gump,” a role which earned him an Academy Award nomination, Golden Globe Award nomination, and Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Though the film didn’t delve too deeply into Taylor’s personal history before his time in Vietnam, during his remarks to the corps, Sinise shared that as part of the backstory he created for the character, he decided that Taylor had been a graduate of VMI.

“It was great just to see him,” said Ernesto Sampson Jr., the president of the VMI Foundation’s board of trustees, after the parade. “You see him on TV, but to see him in person just brings you to a different level of respect and admiration.”

In addition to his acting career, Sinise is also known for his work with veterans, service members, first responders and their families through the Gary Sinise Foundation, which he founded in 2011. The foundation has, to date, built 81 specifically adapted smart homes for severely wounded veterans and first responders, served more than one million meals to service members across the country and sponsored more than 500 support concerts for the troops.

“I want the men and women who serve our country to know that somebody like me is out there as an advocate and a champion for them,” he said in Friday’s interview. “They deserve it. Where would we be if nobody wanted to serve their country? We’d be in trouble. So I’m a grateful American for our defenders and I want them to know.”

“When I started the Gary Sinise Foundation, I wanted to create this resource for fellow citizens to support our defenders and kind of make this little rallying point for people to come together and help out,” he continued. “And if I can be kind of a conduit between our citizens and our veterans and our service members and our first responders and … pass the generosity of the people onto them, then that’s one way I can serve, and I’m always happy to do that. I’ve been able to take a good career in movies and television and turn it into something positive.”

When speaking to the corps of cadets, Sinise shared some of life story. He grew up in the Chicago area and said that he “struggled academically” throughout school. His parents gave him a guitar when he was in fourth grade and all he wanted to do was to play with his band. In his sophomore year of high school, he and his bandmates were encouraged by Barbara Patterson, the theater teacher, to audition for “West Side Story,” telling them they “look perfect to play the gang members.” Sinise auditioned and was cast in the play and discovered his love for acting.

“This struggling kid who was barely making it through school now had found a new community and it changed everything for me,” he said. “I just fell in love in with acting and performing. The rest of my high school years I did a ton of plays, continued in bands. My grades in everything but theater classes were terrible, and so at the end of my senior year, I didn’t have enough credits to graduate and had to go back to high school for one more semester.”

After graduating high school in January of 1974 (a member of the “class of 1973 and a half” as Sinise joked), he partnered with fellow actors Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry – both of whom also have extensive television, movie and theater credits to their name – to found the Steppenwolf Theater Company. Despite starting small, the company has grown into “a Chicago institution” and is celebrating its 50th year of operation.

“I speak about this as a truly great American Dream Story: Start with nothing but a passionate idea, work hard, and in the United States of America, you can achieve great things,” he said. “Our freedom certainly allows us the opportunity to do that.

“All these great opportunities in TV and film [have given] me a platform to help support the men and women who serve our country – a platform that brings me here today, allowing me the opportunity to say thank you and to acknowledge this corps of cadets, a special group of future leaders,” he added. “Because of the men and women who serve and defend our nation, somebody like me, a guy who as a kid was not the most well-read, was not well-studied, was not the brightest kid in the class, I was able to live out a dream, because our freedom gave me the opportunities to succeed and thrive.”

Sinise concluded his remarks by commending the cadets on their choice to attend VMI, whether they choose to serve in the military after or not.

“Whether you choose military service or not as you leave VMI, you have made a noble choice to attend a school that takes pride in developing leaders through discipline and hard work, and to those who do make the choice to defend our country, I say, ‘Thank you.’ Where would our nation be without those individuals raising their hand to defend us all?”