Sun, Apr 15, 1990
A flashback to 1966 shows McMurphy as a hospital ward nurse who joins the army and after months in basic training, arriving for the first time at China Beach where she meets Dr. Richard for the first time and she loses her innocence fast after facing the horrors of real war in dealing with the endless soldiers coming in for medical treatment and getting help from the head nurse, Jan Wyatt, and the head doctor, Dr. Singer, over handling the situations. Meanwhile, K.C. under the name of 'Charlene' and working as a secretary/call girl for the sleazy then-China Beach commander, Lt. Col. 'Mac' Miller, meets Boonie Lanier for the first time and they get close when the wounded Boonie is reluctant to go back into the bush when he recovers. K.C., using her influences, gets Mac to hire Boonie as the lifeguard at China Beach.
Sun, Jul 21, 1991
Youngstown, Ohio, 1988. Boonie throws a reunion of all the China Beach veterans. Among the attendees are McMurphy and Joe Arenburg and their baby daughter, Beckett and his wife and teenage son, Lila and a terminally ill Sarge Pepper, Dr. Richard and his wife Colleen, Dodger with his Amerasian son; Frankie Bunsen and Wayloo Marie Holmes. McMurphy flashes back to her last frantic days at China Beach in late 1969 and dealing with a mortally wounded marine. Karen Lanier also films the events and interviews the vets while hoping to come to peace terms with her mother K.C. After the party, the vets decide to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. for one last trip down memory lane.
Mon, Jun 10, 1991
April 25-30, 1975. K.C., now running a successful nightclub in Bangkok, Thailand, gets a call from Trieu Au, her daughter's nanny in Saigon, for help. K.C. flies out to Saigon to help get both of them out of the country before the city falls to the Communists. But she has to deal with an enormous amount of red tape to do so, as well as quash her maternal instincts for her eight-year-old daughter, Karen, whom she barely knows. Meanwhile, Dodger arrives at the deserted China Beach facility after making his way through enemy territory and befriends a scared peasant woman in hiding there. In New Mexico, McMurphy, now living with a group of Navahos, intervenes with a child abuse case involving a fellow vet.
Mon, Apr 25, 1988
In 1967, the people of the 510th Evac Hospital at China Beach Vietnam include the cool but compassionate Army nurse Colleen McMurphy, the naive Red Cross newcomer Cherry White, the singer Laurette Barber and the cynical civilian worker/prostitute K.C. Koloski. They try to deal with the horrors of war which are never far away from the base and dealing with their own individual lives.
Tue, Apr 25, 1989
Wayloo's tour of duty ends and she goes home to a newscasting job in New York, while McMurphy goes home on emergency leave to her hometown in Kansas to visit her family when her father suffers a heart attack. After McMurphy accompanies Wayloo to Travis Air Force base in California where they bid each other goodbye, McMurphy arrives in her hometown of Lawrence, Kansas where the tries to come to terms with her mother, and one of her brothers, named Brandon.
Tue, May 2, 1989
After her father's funeral, McMurphy finds the decision to go back to China Beach very hard and instead goes to San Francisco to visit a colleague from Army nursing school, named Jan Wyatt, who works with disabled vets in an army hospital, who takes McMurphy out for a night on the town with her two hippie roommates and a group of wheelchair bound vets.
Tue, Jun 7, 1988
When a celebrity USO tour starring Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Grant arrives at China Beach, Laurette sees this as her chance to make it big and with McMurphy's help, she joins the tour and leaves China Beach for good. Meanwhile, McMurphy misplaces the body of a young soldier which gets her suspended from the hospital, while at the same time, she finally gives into Natch's moves towards her.
Fri, Nov 30, 1990
Boonie is shipped back to the USA after his jeep accident and has to deal physically and emotionally with the loss of part of his right leg while trying to help his fellow disabled vets with theirs. He then meets his future wife Linda Mattock, a nurse in the VA hospital where he is placed, who helps him regain his self-esteem.