Meet The FCA Soldier Still Filming Saving Private Ryan 25 Years Later

SIMILAR to the Japanese soldiers who continued to fight World War 2 for decades after it ended, WWN has learned of an Irish Army reserve soldier who has been discovered on the south east coast of Ireland, seemingly re-enacting the D-Day landing scenes of Saving Private Ryan despite director Steven Spielberg calling ‘cut’ over 20 years ago.

Cathal Brennan, now 47, was among 1,500 members of the FCA (now known as the Reserve Defence Forces) who helped bring the Omaha beach landing to life for the Oscar-winning epic however, when production moved on from Wexford, Brennan was on a four-day bender with his band of brothers and missed his orders to return to either the Curragh, or just his house.

As such, the then 22-year-old ‘just kinda hung out’ in the dunes of Ballinesker beach in full, 100% accurate World War 2 US army fatigues, and as the years rolled by refused to accept that his part in such a major Hollywood production had come to an end.

“He kept telling us no, they’ll be back for reshoots, they’ll be back to film something for the DVD extras” said Derek Lennon, who served alongside Brennan in the FCA back in the day, before the slagging got too much.

“In the end, we had to just leave him there with his backpack and his tent and his slab of cans. I know you’re not supposed to leave a soldier behind, but to be fair we weren’t soldiers. We were pretend soldiers pretending to be other soldiers. So you can see how it’d flip the switch in the brain, and how Cathal would just get swept up and still be down there. That and the fact that he managed to turn a four-day bender into an 8,670 day bender”.

Brennan joins the ranks of FCA soldiers who are still fighting imaginary wars, along with Sgt. Ian Marron who is still wearing a kilt and running around the Curragh defending Scotland against the cursed English since the filming of Braveheart in 1994.