Television series

Tour of Duty

Name: Tour of Duty
Genre: Drama, Action, War
Released: 1987
Cast: Stephen Caffrey, Terence Knox, Miguel A. Nunez, Jr., Tony Becker, Dan Gauthier

CBS's answer to the question nobody had asked network television yet: what if a weekly drama followed one platoon through an entire Vietnam tour, guys rotating out as new faces rotate in? It's earnest, occasionally clunky, and surprisingly willing to sit with racism, fragging, and burnout between the firefights. Watch it for the ground-level grunt's perspective, not for subtlety.

TVMaze rating

7.1

If you liked this

Platoon1986

Oliver Stone's own tour distilled into two hours of moral rot and adrenaline — the film Tour of Duty was clearly chasing, and the one that got there first with more teeth.

But Relentlessly brutal with almost no relief; it wants to exhaust you, and it will.

China Beach1988

Same war, same network era, but told from the evac hospital — nurses, USO singers, Red Cross workers. A sharper, sadder companion piece that widens who gets to have a Vietnam story.

But Slower and more melancholic; if you wanted combat every week, this pulls back from it.

Band of Brothers2001

The miniseries that perfected what Tour of Duty was reaching for: one unit, a full campaign, faces you learn to dread losing. Bigger budget, tighter writing, same beating heart.

But Ten hours is a real commitment, and it's WWII rather than Vietnam if that specificity matters to you.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam1987no page yet

Same war, same TV year, same platoon-of-strangers structure, but nonfiction — it strips away the melodrama and leaves only what the letters actually said.

A documentary from the exact same year, built entirely from real soldiers' letters home, read by actors over combat footage. It's the true version of everything Tour of Duty dramatised.

But No plot, no characters to follow across episodes — just accumulating grief, which some nights you can't take.

Full Metal Jacket1987

Kubrick split into two halves — boot camp then Hue City — and both are unforgettable. If you want the machine that made these soldiers before the war did.

But Cold and clinical by design; it studies its characters more than it loves them.

We Were Soldiers2002

A single battle, told from both sides of the wire, with a command-level view Tour of Duty rarely afforded its lieutenants. Mel Gibson, but the film earns its sentiment.

But Unabashedly patriotic in a way that can feel dated or simplistic depending on your mood.

The Pacific2010

Band of Brothers' island-hopping cousin, nastier and more psychologically frayed. Shows what the platoon format can do with a real budget and a decade's more nerve.

But Grim almost without let-up; less camaraderie-and-jokes than its predecessor, more slow horror.

Apocalypse Now1979

The fever dream at the root of every Vietnam story since. Watch it to see how far a war film can bend toward myth and madness and still be about the war.

But Deliberately surreal and digressive; if you want grounded soldiers-and-buddies drama, this isn't that.

Hamburger Hill1987no page yet

Same year, same network-adjacent grit, but unsparingly focused on a single doomed assault. The closest thing to Tour of Duty's tone stretched taut for ninety minutes.

But Thin characterisation outside the battle; it's built for one gut-punch, not a season's worth of people.

Generation Kill2008

David Simon's Iraq War miniseries, embedded and profane, following a recon battalion with the same one-unit intimacy — just forty years and a different desert later.

But Dense military jargon and a sprawling cast; it assumes patience Tour of Duty never demanded.

Story of G.I. Joe1945no page yet

This is the ancestor of the format: rotating faces, dogged sergeant, grunt's-eye view of a war back home barely understands. Tour of Duty inherited its whole shape from here.

Made while WWII was still being fought, following war correspondent Ernie Pyle's infantry company through mud and attrition. This basically invented the tired-platoon-you-grow-to-love template.

But Its pacing and style are frankly 1945 — patient, stagey, nothing like modern combat filmmaking.

Jacob's Ladder1990

Same soldier, same war, but the show ends where this begins — the platoon's survivors carrying the tour home in their skulls, reframed as full-blown horror.

A Vietnam vet back in New York starts seeing things that shouldn't exist. It's psychological horror, not war drama, but it's really asking what combat does to a mind once the tour ends.

But Genuinely unsettling and structurally disorienting by design; if you wanted straightforward soldiering, this will frustrate you.