I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Highly Overrated But Still Good

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

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

I lived in Saigon in the 1960's and found this show very realistic and it totally held my attention. I wish it would be shown again -- at least the repeats. I always wondered if Terence Knox is the same Terry Knox who lived in Saigon and was evacuated with our family in Feb 1965. Terry had a twin brother named Randy. I tried to google them just now, but didn't come up with anything. Is it the same Terry? I'd love to know and get back in touch with you guys. My maiden name was Kotzebue and we lived in Carmel and had Easter together the spring after the evacuation. It would be very cool if you are the same Terry . . . Anyway, I don't really watch much TV any more -- I don't find much that I care to watch. If shows like Tour of Duty came on again it would be another story. Recently we had an amazing Viet Nam experience. My cousin was shot down over Laos right before the end of the war 35 years ago. His body was not recovered,but the government kept looking for him and brought his remains home this fall -- We had an incredibly moving burial at the Air Force Academy in Nov and it was amazing how many of his comrades from Laos and classmates from the academy came out to pay him tribute. That was the worse of times and the best of times . . .

Tour of Duty, Combat and the Rat Patrol have something in common where the main characters are not killed off. There were some exceptions. The pacifist kid on Tour of Duty was wounded in action near the end of the first or second season and was send back home due to his wound. You didn't see that in the other two TV shows. The characters in the TV show Combat were wounded but were never send home let alone killed in action.However, there were big differences between Tour of Duty and the two other shows.In the Rat Patrol and Combat, you see German soldiers getting killed in wholesale numbers without inflicting heavy casualties on the Americans. In Tour of Duty, the North Vietnamese gave as good as they got. In the Rat Patrol and Combat, you had German soldiers being killed by bayonets, strangle to death, or in some cases being drown. You did not see that in Tour of Duty.In the TV show Combat, you did not see the show address issues of war crimes committed by Allied soldiers, racist attitudes toward the Afro-Americans, Hispances, Asian Americans, other white Americans of different ethnic groups and to Allied soldiers of different nations like the British and French. The show did not address the military inequalities that exists between the enlisted men and the officer corps. The World War II American officer corp live high off the hog like the American officers of Vietnam. The show did not address the tensions between the regular Army, Army Reserve, and the National Guard. The show also did not address about the situation on the home front both good and bad such as the women and minorities working in the factories, labor unions pushing for higher wages and corporations trying to overcharge the government and Vice-President Truman trying to put a stop to the corporate malfeasance.Finally, in Tour of Duty, you have special effects of soldiers being wounded in action and blood spurting all over the place. You do not see that in the Rat Patrol or Combat.P. S. I am agree with one person who stated about capturing NVA general. In Combat, they always seem to have episodes about capturing an important German officer or destroying a target that was not within their skills.

Recently i bought all three series of tour of duty on DVD which are fantastic seems i haven't seen the show since i was 6 years when i use to watch it with my dad, but one thing i was really disappointed about was all the music has been changed for one none of the episodes started with "paint it black" which was recognisable factor of the show and all the music during the shows had been changed like in the first episode which i have the original on VHS the end of the show finishes with bob Dylan's "all along the watchtower" and also in the first episode the animals "when i was young" wasn't played when they were in the helicopter for the first time. Just a bit disappointed that none of the original music has been put onto the episodes on the dads compared to the old series on television and also the tour of duty Cd's.