"Tour of Duty" makes my top 10 of combat TV series. I think it presents a more realistic view than the movies presenting one extreme situation, and compares to "Combat" and "Band of Brothers" (WWII era). It may have some faults due to artistic license, but I find more interesting details while viewing the DVDs than I noticed originally.
"Tour of Duty" tries to present hard questions, from a soldier on the ground's point of view and his understanding of the situation. It shows the ruthlessness of the VC enemy fighting for homeland, and the uniformed NVA enemy. Sometimes the two fought with each other adding to the complex problem of identifying the enemy.
The real politics of the US government in Washington, DC and Vietnam is another story that begins at the end of WWII when huge shipments of arms not needed for invading Japan were sent to Vietnam from Okinawa, Japan. The books of Col. Fletcher Prouty are a better source for that. However, a villager in "Tour of Duty" curiously has a WWII era M1 Garand rifle and know how to use it. My question is were does he find the ammo, since I believe this fires the less common 30.06 round?
I like this series for the good acting and Terrance Knox as the Sergeant that holds things together, and looks after his men. It doesn't answer everything about Vietnam, but provides a better understanding of the what it was like there. The show features a realistic variety of soldiers of all backgrounds, and presented the problems of Americans trying to deal with survival under poor conditions, their sense of duty, their growing doubts, and wanting to believe that the end results would be worth the high cost.
The series is still surprisingly good.
"Tour of Duty" tries to present hard questions, from a soldier on the ground's point of view and his understanding of the situation. It shows the ruthlessness of the VC enemy fighting for homeland, and the uniformed NVA enemy. Sometimes the two fought with each other adding to the complex problem of identifying the enemy.
The real politics of the US government in Washington, DC and Vietnam is another story that begins at the end of WWII when huge shipments of arms not needed for invading Japan were sent to Vietnam from Okinawa, Japan. The books of Col. Fletcher Prouty are a better source for that. However, a villager in "Tour of Duty" curiously has a WWII era M1 Garand rifle and know how to use it. My question is were does he find the ammo, since I believe this fires the less common 30.06 round?
I like this series for the good acting and Terrance Knox as the Sergeant that holds things together, and looks after his men. It doesn't answer everything about Vietnam, but provides a better understanding of the what it was like there. The show features a realistic variety of soldiers of all backgrounds, and presented the problems of Americans trying to deal with survival under poor conditions, their sense of duty, their growing doubts, and wanting to believe that the end results would be worth the high cost.
The series is still surprisingly good.