Episode
Tour of Duty: Green Christmas
Overview
Christmas finds Team Viking the bush trying to capture prisoners in Cambodia. Doc tries to show compassion to one of the captured men... who turns out to be able to speak English. Anderson and Goldman exchange Christmas gifts, back at camp. Ruiz takes flowers to Susanna. Taylor finds that he misses Johnson. Team Viking prepares for a Christmas party at the orphanage. Meanwhile, Sgt. Marvin Johnson returns home and finds out that bigotry is alive and well there.
Details
- Series
- Tour of Duty
- Season
- Season 3
- Episode
- Episode 11
- Air date
- 1989-12-23
- Runtime
- 60 min
Episode context
Green Christmas is Episode 11 in Season 3 of Tour of Duty. It aired on 1989-12-23. The runtime is 60 min.
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Episode 10: World in Changes
McKay decides he is personally going to get the sniper who has been taking out helicopters... but with Anderson and Goldman on the ground and him in the air, HE ends up the next target, crashing and killing his co-pilot. Johnson, with only 72 hours left, gets a bad case of ""short timer's nerves"". Meanwhile a crazy CIA operative -- Duke Fontaine -- takes several VC suspects up in a helicopter and starts throwing them out until one of them will talk. Anderson and the team are going to go out after a VC-recruiter and get permission for Johnson not to go but because Johnson has decided that he ""must stick to the routine"" he ends up going. Taylor and Johnson are captured by the VC and tortured by a sadistic Vietnamese man.
Episode 12: Odd Man Out
lor is expecting to be promoted at any moment, and opens his mail to find a letter from Johnson talking about how great things are back in the World. Anderson is forced to tell Taylor that he has been passed over for promotion. Taylor starts to deal with the black/white issue -- badly. Percell goes to a black ""bar"" to get Taylor when it becomes obvious that Taylor isn't coming home unless someone goes to get him. Goldman is told that Team Viking is going to go on a mission being dictated by a local Vietnamese Province Chief. The man is going to trade permission to use his village as a base for artillery (which will save many American lives) for the team's going to get his wife). Only after the team agrees do they discover that the woman is pregnant (with another man's child), sick and running from her husband.
More episodes from this season
Episode 9: I Am What I Am
Team Viking goes out to capture a Soviet chopper but ends up surrounded and captured. Luckily the mission was just practice. Myron discovers that his father -- Gernal Goldman -- is back on the base. His father has 2-3 months left to live because of cancer. While Myron and his father fight, Johnson attempts to decide if he should re-up or go back to the World. A Mexican/American WAC takes up with Ruiz. Johnson finally decides to go back to the States. Percell wonders if he is yet ready to return to the field. Anderson and McKay butt heads when McKay tries to take over the leadership of a mission.
Episode 13: And Make Death Proud to Take Us
Newbie replacements arrive, including a young man that gains Anderson's attention as he and Team Viking return from the field, as the boy proves to be 15 years old. FNGs are moving in all over Team Viking. Goldman (suffering from the same shortage of room) finds himself bunked up with McKay. Team Viking gets assigned a recon mission based on Fontaine's information. Anderson and Goldman spend as much time as possible breaking in the new guys. Zeke and Myron head out with 18 FNG's. Anderson's unit stops to dig in a defensive position to work from, but before completing the bunkers they are attacked by the enemy, and due to outstanding bravery and courage, a few actually survive.
Episode 8: Thanks for the Memories
The men of Team Viking are receiving medals in a ceremony in recognition of their heroism. In the midst of the ceremony, General Higgins arrives and reads out Brewster. Higgins thinks Brewster should have kept his mouth closed about Phu An. Higgins leaves with the threat that he will destroy Brewster if the colonel keeps ""forcing the issue"". Anderson talks with Percell who is off drugs, finally, and is now spending time at the Psych Ward. Doc calls home and finds out that his girl friend is sleeping with someone else. Brewster takes the story of Phu An to the press and is relieved of duty.
Episode 14: Dead Man Tales
Team Viking earns a 3-day pass and then promptly gets itself in trouble because of their brawling. While the major is reading every one out about this, a shot from the jungle kills him. Anderson assigns Bell and Doc to work at the orphanage and takes the rest of them out. Goldman is sent out to find the sniper ""or else"". McKay's new gunner opens fire on the Americans below him -- by mistake -- killing a large number of them. The Team gets thoroughly drunk and Bell climbs up on the top of a building and ends up falling to his death. When the others realize what has happened they decide to get him listed as KIA. McKay, meanwhile, goes after the sniper himself!
Episode 7: Cloud Nine
Taylor, Ruiz and Johnson go in search of Purcell after he goes AWOL. They look for 3 days, finally being taken to a heroin parlor by three drug dealers. Danny refuses to leave and the 3 thugs won't let the soldiers force Danny out. Later, Anderson and Team Viking are trying to find a road that is part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. When they find the road they return to the base where everyone knows about Danny. Brewster tells Goldman to solve the problem and Goldman insists upon talking about the massacre. Brewster puts his own career in jeopardy as he tries to get the army to deal with Phu An massacre. Anderson (under pressure from Goldman) organizes a commando raid and goes into Cholon to spring Purcell -- who then is forced to go through cold-turkey withdrawal. Brewster is ordered to shut up about the Phu An massacre.
Episode 15: Road to Long Binh
All of the enlisted men of Team Viking end up with food poisioning. Goldman is forced, because of that, to take on an assignment himself that he had intended to assign to someone else, drafting Anderson to come along. They pick up a deserter who Anderson has known as the ""ideal"" soldier for years. As the two men spend time together they talk about their early meetings, etc. Zeke gets a letter from Johnson. The next day Digby (the deserter) escapes before Anderson and Goldman get there but is recaptured. They start off to Long Binh prison. Digby has been a soldier for 14 years but gave it up when some soldiers started to give him and his Vietnamese wife a hard time. Digby ends up saving their lives, a number of times, and he ends up ""accidentally"" escaping
Episode 6: A Necessary End
McKay has a date with a ""killer"" blonde but on the way to take her shopping he ends up hitting a child with his jeep and comes in contact, for the first time, with a makeshift orphanage where he decides to get involved with the orphans. Doc finds Purcell high on grass and drugs. Purcell leave in a huff, seeking more drugs, and ends up arrested and assigned to a ""shit burner"" detail. Goldman goes to Brewster to report the massacre. Later, Goldman and Anderson are briefed on a mission into Cambodia to kidnap a defecting NVA officer. Percell tries to desert.
Episode 16: Acceptable Losses
Team Viking takes off on another Fontaine mission, where they run into heavy contact. McKay arrives back at the LZ to rescue them, only to end up being fired on by missiles. He has no choice but to leave without Taylor, Ruiz and Private Woznaik. They attempt to make it back to their own lines on their own. The team goes back to check for their men -- McKay gets tricked by the VC and nearly killed -- only Taylor's self-sacrificing smoke grenade gets the chopper pilot back up in time. Wozniak ends up dead of a snake bite, leaving Ruiz and Taylor on their own. As the days pass, Taylor and Ruiz are replaced by two new soldiers, including 44-year-old PFC Thoams ""Pop"" Scarlett, a lifer with a unique perspective on the war.
Episode 5: A Bodyguard of Lies
Utter havoc reigns in the jungle after a newby makes a mistake and two other soldiers are killed going to his resuce. The men are led by Lt. Beller, and his unit has seen far too much action and too much death. Beller is an old friend of Goldman's, together they are sent back out to search for an NVA regiment. Beller tells command that his men need rest or they are going to snap but Brewster insists they must go out. Meanwhile everyone is happy to see Anderson return, except for the ever-depressed Percell. Goldman spends some time with Beller. Percell is going over the edge fast and no one knows that he has started to use drugs. Anderson discovers that Brewster is married to a Vietnamese girl and they have a child. The next day, on their mission, Percell (drugged up) starts to panic. Beller's unit creates a My Lai-type of massacre in the field and that sends Percell off the deep end and straight into the waiting arms of heroin dealers.
Episode 17: Vietnam Rag
Taylor and Ruiz are still listed as MIA. At the camp there are still more FNGs, including a peace-loving photographer. Anderson is told by Goldman that Team Viking is about to be back to SOS (same old shit) missions -- no more special operations. Pop's son is reportedly one of the new guys. Suzanne returns from leave to hear that Ruiz is missing. The photographer gets permission to go out with Anderson's team. Things go bad fast, and they are soon losing soldiers to stupid reasons -- and mostly just because they are FNGs.