Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer led an elite seven-man rescue team into the Central American jungle in Predator. His squad included Jorge "Poncho" Ramirez, Rick Hawkins, Billy Sole, Blain Cooper, Mac Eliot, and former teammate George Dillon, who joined the mission as a CIA officer. The film gives relatively little background for most of the men, but the shooting script and Paul Monette's novelization add hometowns, earlier military service, personal details, and differences in how several of them died. Simon Hawke's Predator 2 novelization later identified Dutch's unit as Delta Force and said it had never lost a man on a hostage rescue before the encounter with the Jungle Hunter.
Jorge "Poncho" Ramirez
Jorge "Poncho" Ramirez was the point man, played by Richard Chaves. The shooting script placed him in East Los Angeles and had him tape his harness down to the last strap before the helicopter let them out. Monette's novel moved that life to the Houston barrio under the name Jorge Ramirez, and had him check every strap on his pack before the rappel. On screen his main weapon was a six-shot grenade launcher built from a World War II flare gun, the AN/M5 pyrotechnic discharger, with Heckler & Koch stock and grip. He also carried a chopped HK94 meant to pass for an MP5, and a Desert Eagle on his hip.
In the guerrilla camp a round had nicked Blain's shoulder. Poncho saw the blood, and Blain said he had no time to bleed. Poncho then rolled into the open with the six-shooter, dumped the rounds on a high arc into the rocks, and told Blain he had time to duck. The novel called that toss a Tijuana yoyo and brought a cliff of caves down with it. On the march, when Anna grabbed for a rifle, Poncho put his gun to her ear. Later a tree limb the hunter cut loose swung down, hit him in the ribs, and tore his shirt open, so he could not walk. Dutch carried him toward the extraction. After Billy stayed behind on the log, the shoulder cannon killed Poncho while Dutch was carrying him. Monette's book pinned him with a spear through the neck on the riverbank after Billy's stand.
Rick Hawkins
Rick Hawkins was the radioman and the medic, played by Shane Black. He wore glasses and read a Sgt. Rock comic on the march. The script described an Irish soldier with a boyish face who caught a roll of tape one-handed in the helicopter without looking up from his magazine. Monette's novel made him a freckled, blue-eyed man from South Boston, and in that book Ramirez called him Puddytat because he had walked away from so many close calls and had pulled every man in the circle out of trouble at least once. His guns were a chopped HK94, carried as an MP5, and a Desert Eagle in a shoulder holster.
In the helicopter he told a joke about how many marines it takes to eat a squirrel. The film used a longer joke, and Billy laughed at the end of it. When Anna ran, Dutch sent Hawkins after her, and Hawkins caught her in the brush after he put his rifle down to hold her. The cloaked hunter killed him with the wristblades and hung the body in a tree. He was the first man the squad lost. Monette's novel called that the unit's first death in seven years, put a spear through his throat, and set his skull and spine on a shelf in the egg-shaped ship.
Billy Sole
Billy Sole was the tracker, played by Sonny Landham. The script made him a Kit Carson scout, an American Indian who walked ahead and read the ground, and it had him working his weapon in the helicopter while he stayed out of Hawkins's joke. Monette's novel made him half Sioux and half Italian, lean and fast, with hair two inches past regulation. His film rifle was an AR-15 dressed as an M16, with a Mossberg 500 shotgun under the barrel, a Desert Eagle in a shoulder holster, and a machete. The early script and the novel put an M203 on that rifle.
Billy read the tracks at the crashed helicopter and found the skinned men from Captain Jim Hopper's unit. The novel named that dead officer J.S. Davis, a Green Beret Dutch had known since boot camp, and gave Billy a chant at a flattened Mayan temple about an old killer that had taken half his people. A guerrilla's knife opened Billy's cheek in the camp fight. He later told Poncho he was scared, because whatever was in the trees was not a man. At the river, while Dutch carried the wounded Poncho, Billy put the rifle down and waited on a fallen log with the machete. The others heard him scream, and the fight happened out of their sight. The hunter used Billy's laugh when it set off the charge at the end. In the novel he bound a medicine bag to the knife and faced due north. A spear then went through his throat.
Blain Cooper
Blain Cooper was the heavy-weapons man, played by Jesse Ventura. The script described a 240-pound soldier with a plug of tobacco and a ten-inch knife he used to cut the chew in the helicopter. Monette added tattoos on both arms and a five-inch scar across the forehead, and had him handle the squad's heavy weapons. He and Mac had served together in the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, fourteen years before the novel's hunt, and they shared a flask with that division's mark on it. On the march Mac called this jungle worse than any bush he had seen, and Blain said it made Cambodia look like Kansas. Cambodia was where that war spilled across the border, and the exchange is the film's evidence that the two of them had both been there. His gun was a handheld GE M134 minigun the squad called Ol' Painless, fed from a pack, with an M60 grip under the barrels, and he also carried a chopped HK94.
After they found Hopper's skinned men, Mac had him bring Ol' Painless out. In the camp fight a round nicked his shoulder, and he said he had no time to bleed. On the march the hunter's shoulder cannon put a hole through his chest and killed him, and he was the second man the hunter took from the squad. Mac took the minigun and cut the trees down where the cloak had been, and that night the hunter took the body out of camp. In the novel a copied Hawkins voice asked Blain about a toothbrush, and a spear entered at the base of the spine and carried his heart into a bamboo trunk.
Mac Eliot
Mac Eliot, played by Bill Duke, was the other large man in the squad. The script put him in the helicopter with an M60 and had him refuse Blain's tobacco, and he did not want Dillon behind him. Monette described a man with almost no neck who carried that machine gun and treated Blain as the only brother he had. That bond ran through the 101st in Vietnam and into Cambodia, the border fighting Blain measured against this jungle. The film gun was a shortened M60E3. He also carried a Desert Eagle in a shoulder holster, set M18A1 Claymore mines, and took Ol' Painless after Blain died.
He and Blain cut the tripwire on a claymore on the way into the guerrilla camp. When the shoulder cannon killed Blain, Mac fired the minigun into the jungle until the belt ran out. In the novel he polished the 101st flask, drank, and put it back in Blain's shirt before he closed the bag. After the tree limb wounded Poncho, Mac went into the trees with Dillon and followed a voice that used Blain's words. The cannon's three aiming dots settled on his head and killed him. The novel opened his windpipe with a spur during that chase.
George Dillon
George Dillon was the CIA officer on the mission, played by Carl Weathers, and the film gives his first name as George. Monette's novel called him Al Dillon, a colonel from Langley who had grown up in South Central Los Angeles and had served with Dutch on special duty in Thailand. He walked into General Phillips's hut in new fatigues and tried to show Poncho a lighter with the panther crest of that unit, and Blain spit tobacco juice across his boot. He cited the Berlin embassy rescue they had run together. The script timed that raid at eight seconds across three floors, and the novel put seven terrorists down in ten seconds, three weeks before this hunt, without the raid reaching the news. He also knew Dutch had turned down a Libya hit because the squad rescued people and did not take assassination work. His guns were a chopped HK94 carried as an MP5 and an M1911A1, while the other men carried Desert Eagles.
He described the mission as a one-day rescue of cabinet members, and General Phillips's order was that Dillon would take charge once they reached the objective. The hostages were dead CIA men, and Hopper's team was the unit the hunter had skinned. Anna stayed with them because Dillon wanted what she knew about the guerrilla network. After the tree limb wounded Poncho, Dillon took a second HK94 and went into the trees with Mac. The shoulder cannon blew his arm off, the gun in that hand continued to fire, and the wristblades killed him. The novel killed him with two spear throws, one above the elbow and one through the abdomen.
Alan "Dutch" Schaefer
Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer led the unit, and Arnold Schwarzenegger played him. The script gave his age as 38 and had him stub out a cigar when General Phillips said an outsider would go in with them. He had the Berlin embassy rescue behind him and had turned down the Libya hit. Hawke's novel called him a decorated Vietnam veteran and the head of a Delta Force hostage-rescue unit that had not lost a man before Central America. His rifle was an AR-15 SP1 fitted to look like an M16, with an M203 grenade launcher under the barrel, a Desert Eagle on his hip, and M67 grenades on his vest.
He took the guerrilla camp, then put the captured orders in front of Dillon and learned the real mission. The cabinet story had been cover for a CIA problem. After the other six were dead he went into the river, lost the pistol in the falls, and came up coated in mud the hunter's thermal vision could not read. He built a bow, used the explosive from his 40mm rounds on the arrows, and set stakes and a counterweight log. He wounded the hunter and pinned it, then got clear when the hunter set off the self-destruct. The helicopter took him out, and he was the only soldier from the unit who lived.
Radiation from the blast put Dutch in a hospital. In September 1987 Peter Keyes of the OWLF debriefed him there, looking for a way to find the hunter again. Dutch pulled the tubes from his arms, got past the orderlies, and left in a stolen car. He lived under other names after that and hunted on his own. In Laos the female hunter Cleopatra killed another small team of his, caught him in a netgun, scarred his face, and let him live. He helped the OWLF on some hunts without joining the office. After Peter Keyes died, Project Stargazer took over the search, and Dutch later took Yautja DNA from Sean Keyes, Peter's son, which gave him faster reflexes and a longer life.
Conclusion
Dutch led the rescue unit into the Central American jungle in Predator, and the Jungle Hunter killed the other six soldiers on that hunt. He was the only one from the squad who reached the helicopter after the blast, and Peter Keyes debriefed him in the hospital before Dutch left.
Appearances
- Predator (1987)
- Predator novelization (Paul Monette, Jove, 1987)
- Predator 2 novelization (Simon Hawke, 1990) - the unit's record, and Keyes's briefing after the hunt
- Predator: Eyes of the Demon, "Aftermath" by Bryan Thomas Schmidt (2022)
- Predator: Hunting Grounds (2020)
Tag Categories: Predator Universe Characters | Predator Lore
