China Beach Screenplay
Within klicks of Danang, Vietnam, sits a U.S. Army base, bar and hospital on China Beach filled with wounded soldiers and one very lovely but damaged Army Nurse Colleen McMurphy. Many heroes, dead and alive, try to make sense of life and death in between bourbon, bullets and battles.China Beach 100: Pilot
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.
Read Screenplay - PilotChina Beach 102: Hot Spell (fka Heat Wave)
K.C. agrees to ask about Cherry's missing brother as she sets up a deal on the local black market to buy a priceless antique vase. At Lila's request, Laurette prepares to perform for visiting brass at a 1940's nostalgia party. Later that night, Lila, K.C., McMurphy, Laurette and Cherry share confidences in a bunker as they wait out a mortar attack together.
Read Screenplay - Hot Spell (fka Heat Wave)China Beach 206: All About E.E.V.
A legendary war hero, named Colonel Edward E. Vincent, parachutes into China Beach for some R&R and captures the attentions of Lila for romance, K.C. for money, and Wayloo for his life story. McMurphy and Dr. Richard play a game of sexual brinkmanship during a luau. Meanwhile, Frankie gets a chance to appear in the limelight when a crazy white solder, under the delusion that he's Chuck Berry, asks her to sing with him at a show.
Read Screenplay - All About E.E.V.China Beach 207: Tet '68
During the first night of the Tet Offensive, Beckett becomes a prisoner of Mai's Viet Cong brother at a small hamlet. McMurphy is trapped at the deserted I Corps Headquarters dinning room with K.C. who goes through a drug withdrawal. At China Beach, Dr. Richard is trapped in the hospital with an unusually talkative Dodger. Wayloo follows Boonie and other troops into battle and helps fight the VC attempting to overrun China Beach. Meanwhile, Cherry comforts another Red Cross volunteer trapped with her at a besieged fire base.
Read Screenplay - Tet '68China Beach 213: Twilight
Boonie's story comes out after Wayloo presses to get him awarded a medal for bravery when her congressman father comes for a visit. Unfortunately, it also brings a board of inquiry to find out what really went on in the bush: a covert operation in Laos headed by a CIA man whose indiscriminate killing of enemy locals prompted Boonie to kill him, and Dodger and Sweetness covered for him. Meanwhile, McMurphy sees Dodger again when he returns to China Beach as he prepares to go back into action. Also, Frankie befriends Sweetness, who's now a captured deserter.
Read Screenplay - TwilightChina Beach 214: After Burner
After McMurphy manages to deal with the death of Natch, he suddenly shows up after escaping from the Viet Cong along with a fellow colleague and comes to a crossroads on what to do with his life. Meanwhile, Boonie gets replaced as manager of the Jet Set Club by a pot-skimming sergeant connected with a less-than-legal local entrepreneur, named Turner, whom K.C. used to work for. Also, Lila offers to arrange the shipping home of a GI's "stuff," not realizing that it's a baby leopard cub.
Read Screenplay - After BurnerChina Beach 303: Dear China Beach
A young Vietnamese girl delivers an Amerasian infant boy to Dodger and tells him that he is the father, which triggers his inner turmoil. Meanwhile, McMurphy is laid up in the hospital suffering from dysentery caused by a drinking binge, and Holly tries to get the China Beachers to answer mail from a 7th grade class in Colorado.
Read Screenplay - Dear China BeachChina Beach 315: A Rumor of Peace
Looking for a little adventure, Frankie and Beckett form a pirated radio station in the GRU building and become the disk jockeys Miss Wizard and Dr. Dark, who play a practical joke on the air by declaring peace. But they're horrified to see it get totally out of control. Meanwhile, K.C. plots to move her business from China Beach while trying to get Boonie to drive her to Da Nang. Lila faces a possible separation from Sarge Pepper in going home, and McMurphy and Dr. Richard talk about life back in the world.
Read Screenplay - A Rumor of PeaceChina Beach 321: The Gift
Lila is upset at her failure to advance in the U.S. Army and is worsened by the arrival of her friend Libby, now a colonel, who comes to China Beach to do a recruiting film for army nurses. Meanwhile, McMurphy is unknowingly made the beneficiary of a soldier's insurance policy and receives $20,000 in a death benefit, which prompts an Army investigator to investigate possible misconduct on her part.
Read Screenplay - The GiftChina Beach 409: The Call
Frankie tries to adjust to her new life back in her home town when she gets caught up in an incipient revolution by a group of black urban revolutionaries in the wake of the Chicago Seven Trial. At China Beach, McMurphy receives a request from Dodger who's back in the country helping to build a hospital for Montagnard tribesmen with help from a elderly relative and former nurse named Ilsa.
Read Screenplay - The CallChina Beach 411: 100 Klicks Out
In April 1975, K.C. is now running a successful nightclub in Bangkok, Thailand. She receives 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.
Read Screenplay - 100 Klicks Out