Frankie studies her family's heroes' wall at Finley's graduation party and is joined by Finley's friend Rye Walsh.

Two Naval officers arrive to inform the McGrath family that Finley was killed in action and his body cannot be recovered.

During her first shift at the Saigon hospital, Frankie holds the hand of a dying soldier in the emergency room.

Surgeon Jamie Callahan persuades Frankie to submit a transfer request to the operating room.

Jamie's helicopter is shot down and he arrives in the operating room suffering cardiac arrest before being transported to another facility.

Frankie is promoted and transferred to the 71st Evacuation Hospital, a mobile unit near the Cambodian border.

A helicopter pilot introduces Frankie to his captain, who turns out to be Finley's friend Rye Walsh.

In Hawaii for recuperation, Frankie finds Rye, who claims he ended his engagement, and the two begin a romantic relationship.

Frankie arrives home at Los Angeles Airport and is spit on by an anti-war protester while still in her uniform.

Frankie visits Rye's father's garage to plan a welcome-home party but is shown a telegram confirming Rye was killed in action.

At the San Diego airport to greet returning POWs, Frankie calls out to Rye, who runs past her to a woman holding a child.

After discovering Rye is alive and married, Frankie suffers a pregnancy loss in the hospital and learns she was carrying a boy.

Under the influence of Valium and alcohol, Frankie wades into the ocean while hallucinating her dead brother and wakes in an ambulance.

Frankie wakes in Henry's rehabilitation center, where he explains she has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedication in Washington DC, Frankie finds Finley's name on the wall and her father apologizes for dismissing her service.

Frankie McGrath enlists as an Army nurse after her brother Finley is killed in Vietnam, determined to serve despite her family's disapproval. In Saigon she becomes a skilled operating room nurse, falls for helicopter pilot Rye Walsh in Hawaii, and completes an extended tour before returning home. Back in California, she is met with anti-war hostility and her parents' shame, and she is devastated to learn that Rye was reportedly killed in action. Years later, a televised broadcast of returning prisoners of war reveals that Rye is alive and married, shattering Frankie's world and sending her into a spiral of grief and substance misuse. A near-drowning incident finally leads her to Henry's rehabilitation center, where she receives a PTSD diagnosis and begins genuine recovery. She ultimately builds a life of purpose in Montana and achieves a long-delayed reconciliation with her father at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC.

Frankie's journey from Coronado to Vietnam and back, and her long road to healing.

After earning her nursing degree, Frankie is assigned only menial tasks at a local hospital and grows frustrated with the limitations.

Frankie returns home to tell her parents she has joined the Army Nurse Corps, and they react with shock and disapproval.

Frankie arrives at her assigned quarters in Saigon and is introduced to her roommates, fellow nurses Ethel and Barb.

A rocket attack alarm sends everyone to cover, and afterward Frankie meets the flirtatious surgeon Jamie Callahan at the Officers' Club.

On a MEDCAP trip to a local village, Frankie assists with amputating a Vietnamese girl's gangrenous hand and exchanges gifts with a local boy.

Ethel and Barb warn Frankie that Jamie is married, and she confronts him directly about his continued romantic advances.

Frankie and Barb work in the operating room while enemy mortars strike the 71st Evacuation Hospital around them.

During a major nighttime mortar attack, the overwhelmed presiding doctor falters and Frankie steps up to take charge of the operating room.

Recognizing the inexperience of incoming medical staff, Frankie commits to an additional year of service and informs her unhappy parents by letter.

At a country club lunch, Frankie discovers her parents told acquaintances she had been studying abroad in Florence rather than serving in Vietnam.

When a gunshot victim arrives and no doctor responds, Frankie saves the patient by breaking protocol and is fired for the liability.

Barb and Ethel travel to California to retrieve a spiraling Frankie and bring her to Ethel's horse farm in Virginia to recover.

While selling POW bracelets at a shopping center, Frankie runs into the unnamed DC psychiatrist and properly meets him as Henry Acevedo.

After confirming she is pregnant, Frankie accepts Henry's marriage proposal on her birthday despite her unresolved feelings for Rye.

Frankie buys a Montana ranch, earns a psychology degree, and turns the property into a haven for female Vietnam veterans.

Before enlisting, Frankie earns a nursing degree only to be confined to menial tasks, and her announcement to her parents that she has joined the Army is met with shock and disapproval. In Vietnam she bonds with fellow nurses Ethel and Barb, navigates rocket attacks, performs surgery under mortar fire, and extends her tour out of duty. Returning home, she is humiliated when she discovers her parents lied about her service and later fired from a civilian hospital after saving a patient by breaking protocol. Ethel and Barb rescue her from a downward spiral and bring her to Virginia, where slow healing begins. Back in California, Frankie reconnects with psychiatrist Henry Acevedo while volunteering for a POW advocacy campaign, and a surprise pregnancy leads to a marriage proposal she accepts. The pool closes with Frankie establishing a Montana ranch and turning it into a haven for female veterans, finally finding lasting purpose.

The people, milestones, and setbacks that shaped Frankie's path.

Rejected by the Navy and Air Force, Frankie is accepted into the Army Nurse Corps and commits to serving in Vietnam.

Frankie boards a military transport plane to Saigon as the only woman among the soldiers on the flight.

Enemy fire prevents Frankie's plane from landing in Saigon, giving her an immediate introduction to the chaos of war.

Assigned to the quiet neuro ward for the night shift, Frankie begins carefully honing her nursing skills away from the emergency pace.

Before Jamie is transported with likely fatal injuries, Frankie writes a message on a stone and slips it into his duffle bag.

On a Saigon hotel rooftop after a party, Rye tells Frankie he is engaged and she decides to keep her distance from him.

Barb leaves Vietnam before Frankie wakes on her final morning, having said her goodbye only in a written note.

At a base party, Frankie and Rye dance and she tells him for the first time that she loves him.

On her final day in Vietnam, Frankie boards a helicopter with Rye and the two make plans to be together once his tour ends.

After a drunken fight with her father over her Vietnam service, Frankie tears down the heroes' wall photographs and crashes her car.

At a veterans' march in Washington DC, male veterans attempt to stop the women from participating and police later attack the crowd.

After being separated from Barb at the veterans' march, Frankie shares a drink with an unnamed psychiatrist who senses her hidden trauma.

Rye appears at Frankie's door, claims he had planned to divorce before going to Vietnam, and Frankie does not stop him from kissing her.

Frankie learns that Rye's wife has just given birth, drives to a bar in devastation, and nearly strikes a cyclist while drunk.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial reunion in Washington DC, Frankie bumps into surgeon Jamie Callahan and learns he survived his wartime injuries.

Frankie's story turns on a series of defining choices and hard truths, beginning with her quiet determination to enlist in the Army after the Navy and Air Force turn her away. In Vietnam, small but significant moments accumulate — a night-shift assignment that builds her confidence, a slipped note in a wounded man's bag, a rooftop conversation that reveals Rye is taken — and she falls in love despite herself. After her tour ends and grief over Rye's supposed death drives her to crash her car, a veterans' march in Washington DC and an anonymous barroom conversation with a psychiatrist plant the seeds of eventual recovery. A secret affair with the newly returned Rye gives way to a final betrayal that pushes Frankie to the edge of self-destruction. The consequences of drunk driving force a reckoning with her trauma and send her toward genuine treatment. The pool closes at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where Frankie learns that Jamie Callahan survived, offering one final note of unexpected grace.