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

Mar. 15, 2025

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.

William Broyles in ‘Vietnam: The War That Changed America’.Courtesy of Apple

Courtesy of Apple

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 1995Tom HanksfilmApollo 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.”

Jeff Hiers in ‘Vietnam: The War That Changed America’.Courtesy of Apple

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.”

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.”

Jeff Hiers (left) and William Broyles in ‘Vietnam: The War That Changed America’.Courtesy of Apple

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.’ "

“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.”

‘Vietnam: The War That Changed America’.Courtesy of Apple

“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.’ "

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."

source: people.com