1985. Karen Lanier is traveling across the USA making a short documentary film about Vietnam for a high school project and meets all of the principal characters including Dr. Richard, Dodger, Lila and Sarge Pepper, McMurphy, and even Mac Miller and K.C.'s younger sister, Monica, in which Karen finds that her search for the answers to what Vietnam was all about mirrors her search for her own identity and her long-lost mother K.C.