10 More War Movie Actors Who Were Actually There

Saturday Night Live alum and regular comedy actor Rob Riggle has been a regular fixture of the small and big screens for over two decades now, and until 2021 he balanced that career while also being a Marine Corps reservist.

Riggle enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve in 1992 and saw deployments across multiple countries, including Liberia, Kosovo (where he received the Combat Action Ribbon), and Afghanistan. Riggle also partook in the USO in Iraq while his acting and stand-up career took off, only fully retiring from the Reserve in 2021.

While most well-known for his work on SNL, The Daily Show, and films like Talladega Nights and The Other Guys, Riggle has made the occasional foray into the dramatic. One such occasion was 12 Strong, a 2018 film based on Doug Stanton's book, Horse Soldiers, which told the story of U.S. special forces troops operating in Afghanistan immediately after 9/11.

Riggle portrayed the real-life Lieutenant Colonel Max Bowers in the film, who was the commanding officer of the 5th Special Forces Group. Riggle actually met the real-life Bowers while deployed in Afghanistan too, which he discussed while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter: "It's a small world and interesting that it's come full circle like this and that I'm actually playing my old boss."