Growing up, Flower Mound resident Tyler Donovan loved playing with plastic green Army men just as much as the next kid. He’d deploy hundreds of his soldiers out across the living room floor or in the yard, line up opposing forces and snipers, establish intricate bunkers, trenches, and bases made of toy blocks, sticks or books, and create elaborate battle scenes fit for a Hollywood film.
From there, he’d let his imagination run wild—complete with pew pew and boom sound effects and commands like “Take cover!”
“I even remember shaving my head high-and-tight style as early as 6th and 7th grade,” Tyler, 38, said with a laugh. “I also played paintball and military video games—I loved it and dreamed of one day joining the Army.”
Clearly, Tyler had the heart of a future soldier. But his applications to West Point and ROTC, along with his conversations with military recruiters, were grounded by an unlikely adversary—a peanut allergy.
With most military meals cooked in peanut oil, he couldn’t even make it to basic training. Years went by, and the disappointment lingered. He buried the dream, tried to move on, even pretended the military didn’t exist. But he never forgot those green soldiers—the ones who sparked his imagination and undying love for the military all those years ago.
Fast forward to today, and Tyler has brought them back to life—only this time, he’s enlisted real soldiers to lead the charge.
That’s the mission behind Real Plastic Heroes, a U.S.-based toy manufacturing company that Tyler created from scratch to produce affordable, high-quality action figures that inspire imaginative, patriotic play for children of all ages. Taking a page from the classic plastic green Army men, these reimagined versions are 30% taller, have realistic poses, and are packed with detail. More importantly, each set of 32 figures is modeled directly after eight U.S. veterans who fought in the Global War on Terror between 2001 and 2021.
Those soldiers are former Flower Mound resident Manny Merrill (Marines), Paul Darling (Army), Eric Lionheart (Air Force), Taylor LeBlanc (Army), Eddie Moinet (Army), Brian Murphy (Marines), Chris DeBlanc (Marines) and Jason Gotcher (Navy).
Each hero is captured for posterity in eight realistic poses while dressed in their authentic wartime gear. And included with each set of ultra-durable, ready-for-rough-play figures is a special interview and story about each soldier.
A portion of the sale of each set goes to each of the eight soldiers the figures are modeled after.
“I always wanted to make plastic soldiers,” Tyler said. “They were great to play with, but they haven’t been updated since the 60s. They also have unrealistic poses—for instance, holding a bayonet over your head while heading into battle is a horrible idea—and many of the figures have disproportionate limb sizes. They also fell over a lot. I worked with a talented sculptor, Tim Barry, and then found a U.S. firm in Detroit to manufacture them in America. It’s exciting because we could have 15,000 of these by the end of the month.
“It was never just about updating an old toy and making it look cool, though. I wanted to do a service for our country, the warfighters who defend it, and the kids who aspire to serve one day. And the best way to do that was to model them after real people.”
Tyler said that was the tricky part. He was initially re-inspired by Manny Merrill, who was his former neighbor. When the government began withdrawing soldiers from Afghanistan in 2021, combat veterans like Merrill were devastated and faced a range of emotions, including a sense of betrayal, frustration, and emptiness. Tyler also felt the entire process was mishandled, but he couldn’t get over how much his friend was impacted and wanted to do something special to honor him and millions of other heroes.
That’s when he began a massive search, online and across various forums, for the perfect veterans to model his military figures after. He conducted raw, unfiltered interviews with each of them, capturing the good, bad, and ugly from their respective deployments. From there, he surprised them at the video shoot with all the same war gear they had in combat.
“They got to put the uniform back on, and I put them in different poses and took a 360-degree video to capture everything about them,” he said. “If you look at pictures of them on deployment, the figures are dead-on accurate in terms of likeness. The best part is that we incorporate their stories. As Americans, we are used to hearing stories of bravery in combat, but we don’t often hear about everyday life for our warfighters, the horrible things that haunt them, and their friends who died. We do talk about combat, but this is also a platform for veterans to tell authentic stories and share lessons that they think we should have learned as a nation after two decades at war.
He added, “I don’t know a single guy in the military who didn’t play with these growing up. They’re cool, and kids want them. If the parents connect with the mission behind it, I’ll be extremely happy.”
To shop and learn more about Real Plastic Heroes, including bios on each of the real heroes they’re modeled after, visit realplasticheroes.com.
