From Wikipedia:

China Beach was an American war drama television series set at an evacuation hospital during the Vietnam War. The title refers to My Khe Beach in the city of Đà Nẵng, Vietnam, nicknamed “China Beach” in English by American and Australian soldiers during the Vietnam War. 

The series looked at the Vietnam War from the perspectives of the women, military personnel, and civilians who were present during the conflict. 

Set at the fictitious 510th Evacuation Hospital and R&R facility (the “Five-and-Dime”), the series cast of characters included US Army doctors and nurses, officers, soldiers, Red Cross volunteers, and civilian personnel (American, French, and Vietnamese). The series also featured the experiences of the characters when they returned to the United States, either on leave or at the end of their tours of duty. The show does not shy away from showing the brutality of war; it provides a gritty view of the experience and its aftermath.

The show was inspired in part by the book Home Before Morning (1983) written by the former U.S. Army Nurse Lynda Van Devanter. The show’s character Nurse Colleen McMurphy roughly follows Van Devanter’s experiences as a nurse in Vietnam. The book takes the reader from Van Devanter’s wish to serve her country through the adventure she thought her deployment to Vietnam would be, her culture shock upon returning to “the States”, and her struggles with PTSD. The show was canceled before it could fully address McMurphy’s PTSD issues. Van Devanter died in 2002.

The article by Dan Clarendon

Thursday, July 22, marks 30 years since ABC aired the series finale of China Beach, a drama about the Vietnam War that looked back on the conflict not from the perspective of the soldiers on the front line but of the women working as nurses and entertainers. The result was a fresh take on what is still a painful chapter of American history.

Airing from 1988 to 1991, China Beach followed nurse Colleen McMurphy (Dana Delany) as she lived and worked at an evacuation hospital and USO entertainment center at the titular beach on the South China Sea during the war…and as she romanced pilot Natch Austen (Tim Ryan) and pined for Dr. Dick Richard (Robert Picardo). Among the rest of the cast of characters were aspiring singer Laurette (Chloe Webb), draftee Beckett (Michael Boatman), reporter Wayloo Marie (Meghan Gallagher), Red Cross workers Cherry (Nan Woods) and Holly (Ricki Lake), commanding officer Lila (Concetta Tomei) and civilian volunteer K.C. (Marg Helgenberger).

“This show was about people who were in Vietnam not to fight or kill but to save lives and to help cushion the impact of war,” co-creator and Vietnam veteran William Broyles said in a DVD featurette.

John Sacret Young—the show’s other creator, whose cousin died in combat in Vietnam—added that Broyles’ original pitch was a half-hour comedy set in a hotel in Saigon. But Young had a different idea, as he said in the featurette: “Let’s put it not in Saigon but in a place in Vietnam where all these things come together, and where you can actually feel the war over the hill, and the helicopters can come in with the wounded, and yet you have the R&R center, and you have the beach. So we found this place that was real based on reality called China Beach.”

(China Beach is the nickname U.S. and Australian military personnel gave to a beach in Đà Nẵng, Vietnam, during the war, though local tourism officials have objected to the moniker.)

“We discussed, is there a way to tell a story that hasn’t been told?” Young recalled, talking to the Los Angeles Times in 2013. “That is when we came to think about the role of women. Many of them volunteered. It seemed crucial, interesting, and relevant.”

And because the series took place in the 1960s, China Beach featured the music of the era: Diana Ross & the Supremes’ “Reflections” was the show’s theme song, for example, and Nancy Sinatra guest-starred in the Season 1 finale to perform for the onscreen troops, just as she had done in real life two decades prior.

In fact, it was the music rights for China Beach’s pop-hit soundtrack that delayed its DVD release: Time Life finally released a complete-series DVD set in 2013, with more than 10 hours of bonus material, after securing the rights to 268 songs.

Over the course of its four-season run, China Beach landed praise from critics like the Los Angeles Times’ Howard Rosenberg who called the show “grim and brooding, yet captivating, unforgettable and not to be missed” in a review of the first season, adding that it “burns its own agonizing images into the small screen, setting them off with streaks of humor that relieve the tension.”

The show earned 29 Emmy nominations, including three consecutive nods for Outstanding Drama Series. Delany won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series twice, while Helgenberger took home an Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy.

In an appraisal of the drama upon its series finale, The New York Times’ John J. O’Connor said China Beach “sensitively tapped into national terrain that remains difficult.”

The show also sheds light on the struggles of those who served in Vietnam, according to CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent Nancy Giles, who played Private Frankie on the series. “There were still so many Vietnam veterans who were feeling maligned, under-appreciated and misunderstood,” Giles told the Los Angeles Times. “I went to quite a few events with veterans, and I knew it helped heal a lot of people. It got a dialogue started. It helped them talk about what happened.”

Added Delany, “The nurses were in as horrific situations as the soldiers were. Never before had the nurses been allowed to talk about their PTSD. They had this guilt of ‘I wasn’t actually on the battlefield, what right do I have to talk about it?’ With China Beach, they started talking openly about post-traumatic stress.”

“There were so many stories to tell,” Young said in a China Beach DVD featurette. “And we feel honored and lucky to at least have had the chance to tell some.”

This post originally appeared on the TV Insider website on July 22, 2021. Here’s the direct link: https://www.tvinsider.com/1006080/china-beach-30th-anniversary-history/

The YouTube videos were attached to this post by the administrator of this website.

Were you a fan of this show? What were your thoughts about it? Use the comment section below for the discussion

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