Obviously riding a wave of Vietnam drama's created by Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill (which actually features Eric Bruskotter in a small role)this suffered a little from lack of budget but is still pretty damn good. Not afraid to tackle sensitive subjects such as racism, drug abuse, desertion etc but still producing an accurate and positive portrayal of the allied efforts to save South Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia via the domino effect)from invasion by the communist North.
What's good about it is that for the most part it's not sensationalist, it's just a very ordinary platoon doing their day to day duty, much in the same way as the great Australian Vietnam film 'The Odd Angry Shot'. It doesn't preach, never saying that the allied efforts were right or wrong, showing the indisputable brutality and tyranny of the enemy whilst acknowledging the various failings of the anti-communist forces. Our guys are heroes but are also human, occasionally screwing up, accidentally causing the deaths of civilians and their own men, feeling fear, doubt and disillusionment. It's interesting to contrast 'Tour of Duty' with 'The Unit', a series about a much more elite group of soldiers but which confronts the same moral ambiguities and tough choices, showing the uncertainty, confusion, senseless stupidity and randomness of war. An interesting character is war-loving CIA agent 'Freefall' Fontaine who is cast as a villain in no uncertain terms but actually saves Pop and Colonel Brewster's lives in the final episode, proving that heroism and villainy can sometimes just be a question of circumstance.
One of the most revealing scenes is when the troops are enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner and drunken redneck Purcell resentfully comments that America's wars are fought by "The hicks, the spic's and the nigg*rs". Rather than taking offence his Afro-American and Puerto-Rican friends with whom he has undergone horrific suffering and the stark terror of numerous firefights just nod in silent agreement, accepting what he says as an unarguable truth.
A few negative aspects, whilst Terrance Knox is great in his role of Zeke, really convinces as a Sergeant, he's just FAR too nice, impossibly so. Equally Stephen Caffery is AMAZINGLY handsome, even in his grungy combat appearance he is just so damn good-looking (always amazed that he didn't become a big star, Longtime Companion aside he never seems to have capitalised on his potential). In one ep when they're in Hawaii the guys walk past a Black Hawk helicopter which wouldn't have been built until the 1980s. The platoon sustain numerous minor wounds whilst the enemy always die when shot, they recover from horrific injuries amazingly quickly and are regularly captured and escape effortlessly. But these are small points, on the whole the series is factually accurate and addresses little known aspects about the war such as the NVA using elephants to transport their supplies and also utilising helicopters and tanks in small numbers. Nice that it's not just focused on the US troops, including the ANZACs, ARVN etc. Some story lines are obviously taken directly from the war itself, notably the small-scale recreation of Hamburger Hill at the end of season 1, the Tet offensive where the allies triumph on the ground but lose in the media and the failure of the Son-Tay raid to rescue US POWs at the end of season 3.
One criticism levelled at the show by many fans is the move from Hawaii to California between the 2nd to 3rd seasons, the guys no longer being stuck in a jungle firebase but moved to a base near Saigon to serve as helicopter borne infantry. But there were only so many stories you could do stuck in the jungle, the move reduced the budget without which we wouldn't have had 3 seasons and let the guys have different story lines and relationships with women, broadening the appeal of the show. When they become attached to the Special Forces taskforce in season 3 it is once again a necessary change, you can't just keep having endless search and destroy missions, it allows examination of the more covert side of the war, far from the public gaze. Contrary to popular belief not all of Vietnam is tropical jungle, the central highlands do indeed resemble the hills of California. If we see the same terrain again and again it's because that was the nature of the war, you fought over the same ground repeatedly, without a 'surge' not having enough troops to seal the Laotian/Camdodian border or secure the territory you've taken so the NVA would always regroup and return. Only one regular character dies (the original 'Doc' Matsuda from season 1) but in reality that's not an unrealistic casualty rate. But what happens to the Captain Wallace from season 1, he just disappears without explanation?
The ending is impressive, Purcell, Johnson and Ruiz just finish their tour and go home, having trouble adjusting but getting by. Grinder, Pop, Horn and McKay are crippled and go home, forever marked by the war inside and out whilst Brewster, Zeke, Taylor, Doc and Goldman are still in the bush, fighting an increasingly futile and demoralising war as Nixon's Vietnamisation policy takes hold. What becomes of them? I guess unless we have a TV reunion movie we'll never know although it's a popular subject in fanfic, my favourite being 'Tour of Duty; Iraq' where General Myron Goldman runs into aid worker Doc Hockenberry in Baghdad during the Iraq insurgency and discusses with him how everyone else made out. Brilliant music too, the Rolling Stones 'Paint it Black' perfectly suited to the series and nowadays forever associated with it in the public mind.
So all told, a truly excellent series
What's good about it is that for the most part it's not sensationalist, it's just a very ordinary platoon doing their day to day duty, much in the same way as the great Australian Vietnam film 'The Odd Angry Shot'. It doesn't preach, never saying that the allied efforts were right or wrong, showing the indisputable brutality and tyranny of the enemy whilst acknowledging the various failings of the anti-communist forces. Our guys are heroes but are also human, occasionally screwing up, accidentally causing the deaths of civilians and their own men, feeling fear, doubt and disillusionment. It's interesting to contrast 'Tour of Duty' with 'The Unit', a series about a much more elite group of soldiers but which confronts the same moral ambiguities and tough choices, showing the uncertainty, confusion, senseless stupidity and randomness of war. An interesting character is war-loving CIA agent 'Freefall' Fontaine who is cast as a villain in no uncertain terms but actually saves Pop and Colonel Brewster's lives in the final episode, proving that heroism and villainy can sometimes just be a question of circumstance.
One of the most revealing scenes is when the troops are enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner and drunken redneck Purcell resentfully comments that America's wars are fought by "The hicks, the spic's and the nigg*rs". Rather than taking offence his Afro-American and Puerto-Rican friends with whom he has undergone horrific suffering and the stark terror of numerous firefights just nod in silent agreement, accepting what he says as an unarguable truth.
A few negative aspects, whilst Terrance Knox is great in his role of Zeke, really convinces as a Sergeant, he's just FAR too nice, impossibly so. Equally Stephen Caffery is AMAZINGLY handsome, even in his grungy combat appearance he is just so damn good-looking (always amazed that he didn't become a big star, Longtime Companion aside he never seems to have capitalised on his potential). In one ep when they're in Hawaii the guys walk past a Black Hawk helicopter which wouldn't have been built until the 1980s. The platoon sustain numerous minor wounds whilst the enemy always die when shot, they recover from horrific injuries amazingly quickly and are regularly captured and escape effortlessly. But these are small points, on the whole the series is factually accurate and addresses little known aspects about the war such as the NVA using elephants to transport their supplies and also utilising helicopters and tanks in small numbers. Nice that it's not just focused on the US troops, including the ANZACs, ARVN etc. Some story lines are obviously taken directly from the war itself, notably the small-scale recreation of Hamburger Hill at the end of season 1, the Tet offensive where the allies triumph on the ground but lose in the media and the failure of the Son-Tay raid to rescue US POWs at the end of season 3.
One criticism levelled at the show by many fans is the move from Hawaii to California between the 2nd to 3rd seasons, the guys no longer being stuck in a jungle firebase but moved to a base near Saigon to serve as helicopter borne infantry. But there were only so many stories you could do stuck in the jungle, the move reduced the budget without which we wouldn't have had 3 seasons and let the guys have different story lines and relationships with women, broadening the appeal of the show. When they become attached to the Special Forces taskforce in season 3 it is once again a necessary change, you can't just keep having endless search and destroy missions, it allows examination of the more covert side of the war, far from the public gaze. Contrary to popular belief not all of Vietnam is tropical jungle, the central highlands do indeed resemble the hills of California. If we see the same terrain again and again it's because that was the nature of the war, you fought over the same ground repeatedly, without a 'surge' not having enough troops to seal the Laotian/Camdodian border or secure the territory you've taken so the NVA would always regroup and return. Only one regular character dies (the original 'Doc' Matsuda from season 1) but in reality that's not an unrealistic casualty rate. But what happens to the Captain Wallace from season 1, he just disappears without explanation?
The ending is impressive, Purcell, Johnson and Ruiz just finish their tour and go home, having trouble adjusting but getting by. Grinder, Pop, Horn and McKay are crippled and go home, forever marked by the war inside and out whilst Brewster, Zeke, Taylor, Doc and Goldman are still in the bush, fighting an increasingly futile and demoralising war as Nixon's Vietnamisation policy takes hold. What becomes of them? I guess unless we have a TV reunion movie we'll never know although it's a popular subject in fanfic, my favourite being 'Tour of Duty; Iraq' where General Myron Goldman runs into aid worker Doc Hockenberry in Baghdad during the Iraq insurgency and discusses with him how everyone else made out. Brilliant music too, the Rolling Stones 'Paint it Black' perfectly suited to the series and nowadays forever associated with it in the public mind.
So all told, a truly excellent series