It's November 1967 and nurse Colleen McMurphy faces the last week of her tour of duty in Vietnam, dealing as usual with the dying boys, primitive conditions, and the sexual pressure from pilot Natch Austin. USO singers Georgia Lee and Laurette Barber arrive to entertain the troops in the base's new R&R center. Brand new Red Cross volunteer Cherry White also arrives, determined to find her brother, a marine no one can locate.

McMurphy decides that she can't leave China Beach even though she is eligible to go home. Cherry and Laurette arrive- Cherry to look for her brother whom her family lost contact with and Laurette as a USO back up singer who gets promoted to lead when the lead singer can't cope with the war.

Lila takes over command of China Beach and orders KC off the base. McMurphy finally lets herself admit how much she cares for Natch when she receives some disturbing news about him. Wayloo Marie Holmes, former Saigon weather girl, arrives at China Beach to handle her first journalism assignment, extolling the recreational facilities at the base.

Wayloo Marie becomes a casualty as she shoots her assignment. Frankie Bunsen arrives for temporary duty. McMurphy finds a badly injured Dodger.

The accounts of life in Vietnam by real vets are intercut with scenes from old episodes showing how closely the show has mirrored reality.

Wayloo Marie prepares to return the world and a new job at BBC news. She's unexpectedly joined by McMurphy, who's returning to her unsettled family in Kansas following her father's heart attack.

McMurphy reassesses her life as she tries to decide whether or not to return to Vietnam following her father's death.

Dodger reaches the limit of his endurance and decides to leave Vietnam and faces a mountain of paperwork as he tries to get permission to take his Amerasian son home with him.

In 1972, Dr. Richard and his nurse take a romantic trip to Florida, where they run across a hard-livng McMurphy working at an orange-juice factory.

In 1976, McMurphy helps KC re-enter the country and find her daughter before heading out to Montana to visit Dodger, who's coping with a disabled father and raising his son Archie alone.