Heartbreak Ridge - Production

Production

Screenwriter James Carabatsos, a Vietnam veteran of the 1st Cavalry Division, was inspired by an account of American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division using a pay telephone and a credit card to call in fire support during the invasion of Grenada, and fashioned a script of a Korean War veteran career Army non-commissioned officer passing on his values to a new generation of soldiers. Eastwood was interested in the script and asked his producer, Fritz Manes, to contact the US Army with a view of filming the movie at Fort Bragg.

However, the U.S. Army read the script and refused to participate, due to Highway being portrayed as a hard drinker, divorced from his wife, and using unapproved motivational methods to his troops, an image the Army did not want. The Army called the character a "stereotype" of World War II and Korean War attitudes that did not exist in the modern army and also did not like the obscene dialogue and lack of reference to women in the army. Eastwood pleaded his case to an Army general, contending that while the point of the film was that Highway was a throwback to a previous generation, there were values in the World War II and Korean War era army that were worth emulating.

Eastwood approached the United States Marine Corps, which expressed some reservations about some bits of the film, but provided support. The character was then changed to a Marine (this raised some conceptual difficulties, given that the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge primarily involved the U.S. Army. This is explained very briefly in the film when Sergeant Major Choozoo tells some of the younger troops that he and Highway were in the 2nd Infantry Division at the time and "joined the Corps later"). The Marine Corps first cooperated with the film project by allowing much of the filming to be done at Camp Pendleton. The Marines planned to use it to promote its "Toys for Tots" campaign, but upon viewing a first cut, quickly disowned the film because of the language. Marines who viewed the film cited numerous issues with the way they were portrayed. Highway's commanding officer is repeatedly shown disparaging and insulting him. In reality, this would have been extremely unlikely, given Highway's Medal of Honor. Much of the "training" done before the Grenada invasion was highly inaccurate and Highway's Marine Recon unit did not have a Navy Corpsman (the Marine Corps are lent by the Navy medical personnel in a TAD/TDY status) to deal with his men when injured, when in real life Marines usually have Navy Corpsman (Fleet Marine Force Sailors equivalent to an Army Combat Medic) with them to take care of the Marines that get injured in combat. Even on a relatively small budget, the technical advice was poor. The US Defense Department originally supported the film, but withdrew its backing after seeing a preview in November 1986. Eastwood was paid $6 million for directing and starring in the film.

Beginning in summer 1986, Heartbreak Ridge was filmed at California's Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base & Solana Beach and Puerto Rico's Vieques Island.

The sequence involving the bulldozer is based on a real event involving Army General John Abizaid, former commander of US Central Command (July 2003 - March 2007). "In the U.S. Invasion of Grenada in 1983, Abizaid improvised an attack on a Cuban bunker by having his unit take cover behind a charging bulldozer".

The American attack on Grenada is in some respects accurate, although it was really U.S. Army Rangers that secured the University medical school.

The scene in which Lieutenant Ring must resort to using a credit card in order to communicate with his commanders was also based on real-life events involving Army paratroopers.