Tom Hanks Screenwriter Was 'Worried' and 'Scared' His Vietnam War Platoon Would Blow Him Up (Exclusive)

The Vietnam War was a challenging time in U.S. history, and for many, the scars it left still feel fresh. While fighting overseas, the soldiers didn't just have to worry about the mortal threat of the Viet Cong. For some, danger sometimes loomed within their own ranks.

The new Apple TV+ documentary series Vietnam: The War That Changed America features some the people who experienced fighting firsthand telling their personal stories. The six-episode series premieres on Jan. 31, and it commemorates the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

The fourth episode, "Mutiny," focuses, in part, on William Broyles, a soldier-turned-Hollywood screenwriter who received a best adapted screenplay Oscar nomination for co-writing the 1995 Tom Hanks film Apollo 13. During the Vietnam War he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps.

"I’d just turned 25," Broyles, 80, says in the documentary. "I’d had about eight months’ Marine Corps officer training. I’m going through the file of the people in my platoon, and just one after another, it’s 'unemployed,' 'high school dropout.' It was like a catalog of the people who had been left out in America."

Although he was commander of his troops in name, the men who reported to him resisted his leadership. As Jeff Hiers, who was a radioman and a member of Broyles' platoon, puts it in the documentary, “He didn’t know enough about Vietnam to be in charge.”

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For leaders, a lack of respect from one's platoon could lead to something called "fragging," which was when the men they were in charge of launched a mutiny. When Broyles started giving orders, tensions rose.

"I was worried," Broyles recalls. "It was not uncommon that an incompetent or excessively gung-ho officer could get fragged, could get a grenade rolled into his fox hole."

According to Hiers, the threat against Broyles was real. "Bill was on thin ice," he says. "If he wanted to follow our rules, he’d be okay. If he was planning to control the platoon, his life would be in jeopardy. And that’s when I had to take him aside and say, 'You keep this up, they’re going to come for you.' "

Broyles continues: "One thing you don’t want to be in war is by yourself, alone. I was by myself. I was the only officer."

"I was 25, they were all 18, 19, right?" he adds. "And they hate me. I was scared, thinking, 'Is this the night that the grenade might come into my foxhole?' I’m lying there, and I’m supposed to sleep at night listening to them."

One night while has lying bed, a base nearby got "rocketed," he recalls. His immediate response was to charge up the hill to fight, but his men refused to go and face certain death. Hiers had the idea to simulate a defensive move using their radios without actually leaving their quarters.

"I thought for a second, 'Like, I’m the lieutenant. I could probably get court-martialed for this,'" Broyles says. "But I could tell, these guys, they would die for each other, but they weren’t gonna die for a war that wasn’t worth their sacrifice…. And that was my moment right there, when I realized what I was there for. I was there to be responsible for these kids. And I said, 'Okay, let’s do it.' "

It was a true turning point, for Browles and his men. "From that day on, I was one of the platoon," says Browles, who went on to be a successful Hollywood screenwriter and co-created the Vietnam War-set 1988–1991 TV drama China Beach. He also wrote the 2000 Tom Hanks film Cast Away and cowrote 2004's The Polar Express, also starring Hanks.

Hiers concurs. "From that moment, he had proved himself," he says. "He had the respect of all of us. He got it."

Adds Broyles: I fulfilled my mission. I kept them alive. I did."

Vietnam: The War That Changed America premieres Jan. 25 on Apple TV+.

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