Tour of Duty

Several months later, McKay, mostly recovered, is told that he will never fly again. Bitter, he tries to get a civilian job flying but is told that Vietnam vets are too freaky. When he finally gets a job flying air-traffic monitoring, he loses it, not to a "flashback" but to sheer irritation. Ruiz returns home to New York but can't find a job. In Montana, Percell is now a carpenter and is nearly freaked out by finding a Vietnamese worker on the crew. That same night he runs into a peace-activist at a blind date. Bill Griner, having been blinded, returns home to North Carolina. His parents turn to faith healing and Griner retreats to the "comfort of the fields and a faithful dog." Back in Vietnam, Taylor meets a new black soldier who tells him that he came back because the world is nowhere for a "black." Doc has been sent to a field hospital but gets in trouble even there because he shows compassion for a dying man.