Season 1: Episode 11: Roadrunner

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1 Overview
2 Episode Summary
3 Transcript (see transcript listing)
4 Song Listing (see full series listing)
5 Trivia
6 Favorite Quotes
7 Screenshots (see Screenshots page)

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Overview

Third Squad journeys through Dong Ho Valley.

Directed by: Jim Johnston
Written by: Robert Burns Clark

Guest Stars: William Allen Young ... Coyote 2/Capt. J. T. Slaney, USAF

Also Starring: Ched Parrott ... Caldwell; Phil Adams ... Chaplain; Peter McKernan ... Pilot; Dean Stapleton ... Door Gunner; Hung Thien Nguyen ... NVA Leader

Original Air Date: 7 January 1988

Title Card: 1,679 Air Force planes were shot down in combat during the Vietnam War--704 crewmen were killed; 1,226 were rescued.

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Episode Summary

In the Bible, David says in the 23rd Psalms: "Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil..."! This passage comes to life in this story about the Valley of Dung Ho. This was a valley filled with evil. It was full of the skeletal remains of both equipment and men. These bones were a constant reminder that in war there is always a loser!

This story is about Zeke Anderson getting a letter in which his three year old daughter Katie calls him 'Daddy'. Then fear takes on a whole new meaning. In basic, we learned all about battle fatique; strategies of battle; and how to dress an open wound; but fear was rarely (if ever) mentioned. It would seem that the military equates fear with cowardice and weakness. Anderson was neither weak nor a coward, but he had some bad experiences in the Valley of Ho in the past and Katie vividly brought that back to his memory.

This is a story of valiant rescue; fear; morales; and duty to your fellow comrades in arms. Many times, Tour of Duty depicts the Sergeant as a defender of his men and this time, the tables are turned. His men were there for their beloved Sergeant Anderson. Johnson reaching out to Anderson to lead the Sarge out of his cave of fear is an endearing and impressionable bonding between Vietnam's grunts of jungle warfare and relationships made like this, still exist today among the Veterans of the war in Southeast Asia. (By Ernest Johnson)

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Transcript (see transcript listing)

Goldman regards a troubled Anderson.

Excerpt from scene [10:44] In The Briefing Room

GOLDMAN: We all set?

ANDERSON: Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

GOLDMAN: Is there a problem, Sergeant?

ANDERSON: Yeah. Yes, sir.

GOLDMAN: Well, what is it?

ANDERSON: The Dong Ho Valley. I was up there with my last unit, the 11th Cav.

GOLDMAN: Good, then you know your way around.

ANDERSON: We had three companies and almost a full battalion of ARVN. They hurt us bad, LT. God, they butchered us. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And now... now we're goin' back up there with just a--like a squad of men--

GOLDMAN: Wait, let me show you somethin'. Now, there's gonna be major bombing raids up north this week. Command knows from experience some of those planes are gonna go down.

ANDERSON: What's that got to do with us?

GOLDMAN: Just calm down an' I'll tell ya. Now, we're part of an operation called Silver Crown. There's flight corridors right through here. Now, if one of those pilots gets in trouble and has to bail out, he's gonna work his way to one of these coordinates. Our job's going to be to go in there and get him the hell out of there before the dinks get hold of him.

ANDERSON: What? Are you crazy? That whole valley's swarming with NVA.

GOLDMAN: Sergeant, we have got the mission. Now, these men have saved a lot of American lives.

ANDERSON: If we go back in the Dong Ho Valley with one squad and no air support, no support at all, we are dead men. 138 of us out of--out of three companies and a whole battalion came out of there alive last time. Half the bodies weren't even accounted for. You know what that means? "Not accounted for?" Huh? That means we left them up there, we left them up there to rot. My God, I'd rather go to hell than go back up in that valley.

GOLDMAN: Well, you'll have to take that up with General Westmoreland.

Read the full transcript

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Song Listing (see full series listing)

There must be some way out of here...

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (L. Garrett/L. Hardaway/S. Wonder/S. Wright) Performed by Stevie Wonder. Chartbusters, Vol. 4. Capitol, 1964.

Scene: The guys gather round for mail call.
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