Tour of Duty aired on CBS from 1987 to 1990. It was created by L. Travis Clark and Steven Duncan and produced (mainly) by Zev Braun – the latter a longtime vet of the industry and the former two vets of Vietnam themselves. African-American vets at that, which makes Tour of Duty one of a handful of twentieth century shows with African-American showrunners. And among those shows, it stands out as one not primarily about the African-American experience. It certainly doesn’t shy away from exploring any aspect of the black experience in Vietnam. I just mean it's not the main focus of the show; it aimed - and succeeded - to capture the experience for the American enlisted man, of any color.
Race and class were of course in the forefront of the draft and the war, as some of the intertitles that start off each episode (example: "African Americans represented more than 16% of all draftees and 23% of all combat troops, despite being only 11% of the civilian population in 1967." Nothing inflammatory, just fact, but it sets a certain window for the tale to unfold. They use such framing well - and never too obnoxiously - throughout the show) so any honest examination of Vietnam will incorporate such themes, of course.
It was designed to convey the garden variety experience of an infantry platoon on a tour of duty in Vietnam. (A tour of duty was one year. Countdown to DEROS (Date Estimated Return from OverSeas) began the minute the ramp lowered on the C130 troop transport.) And while it does do that, it ended up being a little more like Combat or one of those shows, where the steady and recurring cast got into episodic adventures with a steady stream of guest stars against a theater of war backdrop. Put another way, if you wrote down everything you’ve ever heard about in conjunction with Vietnam, you’ll see it on Tour of Duty, all happening to one group of friends. That said, there’s an awful lot of real (if sanitized for television) detail throughout the show, and Vietnam-readers will pick up threads from many different places, most notably from S.O.G .by John L. Plaster in season three. (Great book, if a little confusing.)
It’s got good performances, characters you care about, and inventive use of set and production design to convey its Indochina landscape. It was way better than most of its audience noticed at the time, I'll wager. And by virtue of being on TV (and rated PG in other words) it was an effective counterpoint to the edgier Vietnam fare that flooded multiplexes from the late 70s to the late 80s. In short, Tour of Duty, while never shying away from controversy, wasn't afraid to show a little of the heroism along with the ambiguity, or to start and end with the basic (gasp) idea that just maybe the salient point to make in all things was not that Americans were imperialist stooges committing genocide.
(Although if that's your bag, fret not - plenty of characters still make it. This isn't some state department recruitment video or anything.)
CBS was likely more interested in moving mass amounts of tie-in soundtracks (which it did) than contributing meaningfully to the positive representations of Vietnam veterans. Everyone was riding the wave of popularity ushered in by Oliver Stone’s Platoon. That's how show biz works, although in Vietnam's case, it was a long time coming. People wanted to forget it for awhile and deal with it only at an arthouse-cinema remove. When it came back, it came back big - and like any fad, left a lot of scorched-earth product behind. A lot of the movies and Vietnam media of this period blends together in memory. (I completely forgot this show existed, for one example, and that one even stars T of D's Tony Becker!)
Tour of Duty is my favorite of the TV attempts. (For my money, The 'Nam - at least that first one-year-character arc - was the best for comics and Platoon the best for cinema. I hear Danger, Close is pretty good, though; anyone see it? We're a long way from the 80s. But hell, we're even longer from Saigon.) It was a show with solid fundamentals, both with regards to TV production and to Vietnam. It never loses sight of its mission statement in either regard.
I’m especially glad to see so many veterans praise the accuracy and detail of the show. It’s good to have that stuff verified. My father was in the Seabees and did two tours (the first in Chu Lai, the second six miles down the road at Rosemary Point, Camp Miller) so it’s always been part of the background of my life. My Dad had a pretty good go of it, as such things go, nothing like flashbacks or outbursts at Asian-American waiters or things you might see on Highway to Heaven or what not. He opposed the cartoonization of it in 80s media (Rambo, Chuck Norris, the just-mentioned, etc.), but he equally opposed the Hanoi-Jane-ification of it. Beyond that influence, though, I grew up inundated with Vietnam-media the way I was inundated with any other trend or trope of the 80s, then I didn't think about it again until reading In Pharaoh's Army by Tobias Wolff in 2002. And have been reading steadily about it ever since.
I mentioned the soundtracks. If you can see the show with the original music (and “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones over the credits) all the better. The DVD set I have is missing all of those and over-uses the instrumental music which originally played over the end credits (composed by Joseph Conlan, a really nice piece of music) as well as some sound-alike versions of “Purple Haze” and others, or “On the Road Again”. Over and over. I've seen the episodes all plenty of times as originally mixed, and they're definitely better. It was later released with the original soundtrack restored, and I need to get those one day. This sort of thing always makes me wonder: will the same thing happen to newer shows that used so much licensed music like Mad Men, The Sopranos, or Breaking Bad? Or does this sort of thing only apply to the licensing deals and lateral revenue streams of yesteryear, i.e. the $250k Mad Men paid to use "Tomorrow Never Knows" for a few seconds of screentime applies in perpetuity, while the Tour of Duty folks probably had to keep renegotiating with Allen Klein for "Paint It Black." Who knows. Anyway, I’ll try to note here and there where a change does significant damage.
I'll devote the next three posts to each of the show's three seasons but wanted to introduce the show's main cast. In order of how they appear in the credits:
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| Terence Knox as the Sarge aka Zeke Anderson (SSG/SFC) |
On his third tour of duty when the series begins, Sgt. Anderson is the lifer who pretends he isn't, dedicated to keeping those in his charge alive and able to maneuver around the endless rotations in the chain of command above him. Sometimes. Resigned to dysfunction. He’s the soldier whose marriage breaks under the strain and whose daughter doesn’t know him but on whom everyone around him absolutely depends. Ditto for the show. Knox proved himself capable of anchoring an ensemble cast, and it’s too bad he never found a good fit on another show.
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| Stephen Caffrey as Myron Goldman (2nd Lt/ 1st Lt) |
Everything I just said for Zeke applies for the LT as well. The class issues in Tour of Duty are sometimes not very subtle, but they do a good job of sketching out some of the condescension in the upper ranks between commissioned officers and OCS officers, as well as the futility of it all. Lt. Goldman is trying to outdo his Dad (because of course he is) but like Zeke he becomes committed to something else. MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) was a corporation; the Lt. Goldmans of the war were like those division heads who managed to keep their employees from getting fired despite the determined (at times maniacal) mismanagement of the board. Caffrey gradually segued into stage work in the years after Tour of Duty, but he had some memorable turns on 90s TV (Seinfeld, and as John Ford in the last episode of Young Indiana Jones.)
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| Tony Becker as Danny Percell (PFC/Cpl/SP4) |
The grunt, Caucasian. From the backwoods of Montana, uncomplicated, has your back in the field, in the bar, at the base. Except for the few episodes where he briefly gets hooked on smack. (Like I said, they compartmentalize the war onto one group of folks – just roll with it.) Becker had more credits as a kid actor than many actors accrue in a lifetime and continues popping up here, there, and everywhere.
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| Ramon Franco as Alberto Ruiz (Pvt/PFC/Sp4) |
The grunt, Latino. From the Bronx, has a lot to prove in the first season, then burned by his trial by fire, then steadies into a seasoned hand over the three seasons. Ramon Franco most recently played the theater manager in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a credit which amuses me as I wonder if he came to Tarantino’s attention from his bold use of the n-word in the pilot episode of Tour of Duty, ("What's the matter, n-words? Ain't you never seen a s**c before?" I should mention that too: 80s TV standards were a little different than nowadays; ye of delicate ears and sensibilities and born-to-cancel be forewarned). Regardless, this is an actor who has been on everything from Miami Vice to the X-Files to Law and Order: SVU.
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| Miguel A. Nunez, Jr. as Marcus Taylor (Pvt/PFC/Sgt.) |
The grunt, African-American, walking the line between his own destiny and the one others try to foist upon him. Part of me wonders how much of this guy is based on L. Travis Clark’s own experience in the war, and I wish there were more interviews with him and Steve Duncan about things. As a Navy vet, Duncan's experience was a bit different than an infantryman in a rifle company, but I assume their own experience informed aspects of all the characters, not just Taylor’s. Taylor's arc has a lot of personal touches missing from the other’s, though - just a hunch. Taylor gets most of my favorite moments from the series, and his arc is – outside Zeke’s – the backbone of the show. The actor has been employed steadily since the show ended, and he still seems to be going strong.
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| Stan Foster as Marvin Johnson (SP4/Sgt) |
The grunt, innocent. Also African-American, but I think he fulfills the innocent-greenie role, even if others serve that purpose as he gets more experience as the series goes on. Also the first of the regular cast we see back in the world (in season three) and somewhat adrift. Stan doesn’t have too many credits at IMDB before or after Tour of Duty. Too bad; he's an indelible part of the show.
Anyone who is only in the cast for one season will be covered in the post for that season. Dan Gauthier joined the cast in season two and was in it throughout season three so I'll make an exception for him:
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| Johnny McKay (1st Lt) |
The obligatory hotshot helicopter pilot. Gauthier had a long post-TOD career in soaps both daytime and nighttime as well as many other credits, including Friends and Ensign Levelle from “Lower Decks” (Star Trek: TNG). Gauthier brings an intensity to the role that transcends his Top-Gun-y demeanor. His love triangle with the LT and Kim Delaney is a fun part of season two, and the showrunners chose his character’s arc to punctuate the series in the last episode. Which makes sense: the helicopter remains perhaps the most visible symbol of the war for many Americans, so the image of McKay, whooping “Wooly Bully” over his headset and buzzing the tower, happily not fitting back into the world, is a resonant one. We’ll cover all that in season three, though.
As for the two showrunners, after Tour of Duty they both worked on A Man Called Hawk, but information is kind of scant on them. Looks like L. Travis Clark died, but I can’t find much one way or the other on Steve Duncan. I watched the documentary that came with my DVDs and looked up a few things but really didn’t find much. * Both deserve a lot of credit for what they accomplished with the show – a blanket statement for everyone who worked on it.
* If you google and find things and say “You should have tried harder, a-wipe!” I’m happy to be educated in the comments, up to and including the a-wipe. The truth is, Dog Star Omnibus, Inc. could no longer keep its internet-fact-finding team on the payroll, so a google or two is all I can manage. I regret this as much as anyone. I can't even get the official fan site www.hum60.com to open. Can you?
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| L. Travis Clark |
Next Time: A look through my favorite episodes, season by season, nice and breezy. Mainly I’m going to dump the screencaps I took and bullet-point the notepad blather I’ve been keeping for the past six months or so. Mark your calendars!
