Episode
Tour of Duty: Popular Forces
Overview
Anderson, Johnson and Ruiz train four Vietnamese recruits whose inexperience poses problems.
Details
- Series
- Tour of Duty
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 8
- Air date
- 1989-02-21
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
Popular Forces is Episode 8 in Season 2 of Tour of Duty. It aired on 1989-02-21. The runtime is 60 min.
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Episode 7: I Wish It Would Rain
Alex and a French correspondent investigate illegal incursions of Cambodia by U.S. troops.
Episode 9: Terms of Enlistment
A new man -- Woods -- walking point accidentally steps on a pressure-activated mine. While they are trying to get him off it, they are told a squad of VC are heading straight at them. McKay finally arrives to lift them out of the hot LZ. Zeke plans an R&R in Tokyo with Jennifer but the plans go awry when Major Darling offers Seymour a teaching post and position back in the States -- and she only has 48 hours to make her decision. Meanwhile a homosexual GI tries to commit suicide when he is being blackmailed. Jennifer tries to help him -- at the cost of her own career. Meanwhile Woods ends up in a fight, and Taylor realizes the man has career-potential abilities.
More episodes from this season
Episode 6: Sleeping Dogs
Anderson goes into the jungle to find a disturbed friend who refused a transfer home.
Episode 10: Nightmare
Goldman searches for McKay after the Army gives up; Percell faces charges for killing a social worker's attacker.
Episode 5: Non-Essential Personnel
Alex sets out to expose a major whose questionable judgement has caused casualties.
Episode 11: Promised Land
Word of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination lowers black soldiers' morale,
Episode 4: True Grit
Anderson risks court-martial to delay the return of battle-weary men to combat.
Episode 12: Lonesome Cowboy Blues
Anderson and Goldman find a leak in a top-secret operation; Alex must prove herself to a shady new boss.
Episode 3: For What It's Worth
While out on a patrol, Anderson and Goldman observe some VC transporting an American prisoner and photograph him before leaving the area. Although they are badly outnumbered, Ruiz stupidly goes back down the trail after a necklace he dropped, tipping their position and getting a man killed. Alex drops by to see Goldman. Zeke goes to the hospital to try to straighten out some records and ends up saving the life of psychiatrist Jennifer Seymour from a homicidally insane LURP. An explosion in the latrine sets of Major Darling, while Anderson suggests that it might not be VC but an American solider who planted the grenade. Taylor gets accused -- falsely -- of doing the dirty deed and now it is up to Anderson and Goldman to find a way to clear him. Ruiz begins to completely breakdown. Anderson's budding relationship with Seymour is short-circuited when he betrays her confidence by sharing information he gained from her in an effort to clear Taylor.
Episode 13: Sins of the Fathers
Alex risks her life by investigating a prostitute's murder in which Taylor is implicated.
Episode 2: Saigon (2)
Anderson meets with his wife and sees her off after her announcement that she is remarrying. Goldman begins a relationship with Devlin which almost ends as they are both nearly blown up by a VC bomb. Percell is fed up with the senselessness of the war and Ruiz becomes convinced that he is going to be the next to die. Johnson and Taylor go to check on Bridger only to be told that he is dead (he is faking it), while Stacy Bridger has arrived to find her father. Goldman is ordered to have Alex pull her story about the soldier who died in the opium parlor and Zeke runs into Stacy Bridger -- rescuing her from some Vietnamese punks. He takes her back to the hotel where Zeke ends up trying to save a suicidal marine deserter. The deserter has sold information to the VC and ends up killing himself. Meanwhile McKay sends Goldman on a ""snipe"" hunt so that he can be alone with Alex, and inadvertently exposes Goldman to serious danger.
Episode 14: Sealed with a Kiss
Zeke considers a job offer as a mercenary for the CIA; Zeke and Goldman go on a dangerous mission with a Navy SEAL.