Looking to combine the ’60s ambience of Mad Men with the military camaraderie of Band Of Brothers, History Channel is developing The Boys Of ’67, a scripted series about the First Platoon of Charlie Company, 9th Infantry Division. Charlie Company was one of the last units raised, trained, and deployed en masse to service in Vietnam. Jeb Stuart, writer of Die Hard and The Fugitive as well as several unproduced Indiana Jones screenplays—including Indiana Jones And The Saucermen From Mars—has been tapped to write as well as executive produce the project.
The new mini-series will be based on Andrew Wiest’s book The Boys Of ’67, for which he interviewed more than 50 officers and enlisted men who served with Charlie Company as well as family members of the veterans. The battles that Charlie Company saw in 1967 were nearly as bloody as better-known battles like the infamous Battle of la Drang and Battle of Hamburger Hill; as a result, many of the surviving members came home with what the military now recognizes as post-traumatic stress disorder. (PTSD was not diagnosed as such until the late ’70s and barely treated until the ’80s.)
This marks Stuart’s second time working with the History Channel; Stuart previously adapted Alex Kershaw’s WWII history The Liberator for the cable network.