Dale Dyes character Col. Cob USMC ribbons are actually those awarded to Dale Dye during his career in the in the United States Marine Corp.
Loosely based off the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur.
In this episode, John Schneider plays a former Marine Force Recon sergeant. On the Dukes Hazzard, his character's cousin (Tom Wopat) was a former Marine Force Recon sergeant.
A number of soldiers that fought in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) began suffering from unusual, and sometimes serious, symptoms not long after the war, which became known as Gulf War Syndrome. At first the US government denied that any such syndrome existed, however by 2020 as many as 35% of Desert Storm veterans from four different countries showed a similar set of symptoms. Eventually by 2007 the governments of the US and UK acknowledged the condition, though a definitive cause had yet to be found. One theory was radiation exposure from depleted uranium bullets was the cause, but research showed the levels of radiation in those rounds was not enough to cause this much wide spread illness, especially with symptoms appearing in veterans who never handled ammunition. The leading theory was that Gulf War syndrome was caused by exposure to sarin gas, as pointed out in this episode allied forces bombed and destroyed a number of Iraq's sarin gas facilities, which released the deadly nerve toxin into the air. Research over the past 30 years demonstrated that expose to sarin at tiny doses previously thought to only cause short term symptoms can in fact cause permanent nerve damage in some people. As of 2022 the cause of Gulf War syndrome is widely accepted to be caused by sarin gas exposure, researchers led by Robert Haley, MD at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that exposure to sarin nerve gas in soldiers who had a particular genetic mutation that prevented them from breaking down the nerve gas is likely to be responsible for the syndrome.