 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.