Diane Carlson Evans Narrator Kim Heikkila Interviewer April 3, 2001 Telephone Interview KH: This is a telephone interview with Diane Evans scheduled for nine o’clock, Tuesday, April 3, 2001. [Kim Heikkila dials Diane Evans’ telephone number] Veterans DE: Diane Evans. KH: Hi, Diane. It’s Kim Heikkila. DE: Hi, Kim. How are you? Vietnam Society KH: I’m good. How are you? Project DE: Good. Can you hang on one minute? KH: Sure. WomenHistory Historical [Pause] DE: Okay, I’m all yours. Oral KH: [Chuckles] All right. Before I start asking you anything, let me just make sure that it’s okay with you if I record our conversation. DE: Sure.Minnesota’s Minnesota KH: Okay. So China Beach. I think that this little bit on China Beach will be included in the [dissertation] chapter on the [Vietnam Women’s] Memorial. I was just doing some reading about China Beach and saw in a footnote—this was before I had watched any of the episodes—in one article that somebody said, “Oh, and by the way, China Beach eventually won the support of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project after they called a meeting with Diane Evans and some of the other people of the project and worked on this episode . .” blah, blah, blah. That was just a pearly little gem I found tucked away in the back of this article. Of course, now I have seen the episode. I’ve had the tapes through that particular episode where you all are interviewed and 61 they’re mixing those clips with footage from the TV show. So I’m really curious as to how you got involved in China Beach. DE: [Chuckles] Where was the footnote, Kim? KH: Oh! What article? I believe it was either in an article by a woman name Sasha Torres or Amanda Howell. If you want the specifics, I can certainly find it for you. I don’t have it in front of me right at the moment. It was just an article on China Beach and I believe [unclear] melodrama. DE: Okay. Well, just a couple things. This is really interesting, isn’t it? Last week, I had an email message from someone named Chris Mauer from the History Channel in New York City. Would I come to New York City on April 12th and be interviewed, because they’re doing a piece on China Beach? KH: Really? Veterans DE: Can you believe this? KH: Geez! What timing! DE: I know. Vietnam Society Project KH: That’s weird. DE: I thought, you know, this interest in China Beach . I have emailed him or her—it was a Chris, so I don’t know—back. ThisWomen was a Historyweek ago Monday, a week ago yesterday. It was just such a short cryptic little, “Would you come to NewHistorical York and be interviewed? We’re doing this thing on China Beach.” So I emailed back and I said, “Tell me more about the program. Tell me more about you.” I would expect to have a little more information than just a little abrupt three sentences. Oral KH: Sure. DE: “We’ll pay your travel and lodging.” Then I just got another message back, kind of a repeat of the firstMinnesota’s message, without anyMinnesota more information. I don’t want to be in New York next week. It takes me three days, two days of travel, too much wear and tear, and they haven’t been very forthcoming with the piece. KH: That’s weird. DE: So I just emailed Chris this morning and declined and said I would not be coming to New York, that I would be happy to be a resource and if they want to contact me, I can give them names of other women who have given me permission to give their names out to the press to be interviewed if things like this come up. So I could refer him to some other women who might be 62 willing to talk to her or him. But I haven’t heard back, so I don’t know if the whole idea has fallen apart or . I don’t know where it’s going, but I’ll keep you informed on that. KH: Yes, yes, I’d be really interested to see what’s going on. That’s interesting that there’s some interest there in China Beach all of a sudden. I wonder what it is. DE: Okay. How I got involved with China Beach . I can tell you exactly how it started. I even remember the day they called. It was a Friday morning. But I’ll back up before that. I did not know that there was a program on television called China Beach until my dad had watched an episode. He called me and he said, “Diane, have you been watching China Beach?” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “There’s this new program on television and it’s about nurses in Vietnam.” I said, “I’ve never heard of it.” Dad said, “Well, the nurse on China Beach looks just you.” KH: [Laughter] Veterans DE: Then I found out later from my mother, my dad couldn’t even watch the program anymore. Mom said he could not watch it because he would just break down and cry. He’d cry the whole time, because was seeing me, he thought, in this program. [Chuckles] My Mom had told me the whole year I was in Vietnam, my dad was really depressed. I found out all that later. So did I have anything to do with China Beach? No. Did they pattern Dana Delany’s character [Lieutenant Colleen McMurphy] after me? I don’tVietnam think so. If they did,Society I certainly didn’t know about it. But there were so many similarities it was kind Projectof spooky. She had all these brothers; I had all these brothers. She was from the Midwest; I was from the Midwest. The age . there was just a lot of . but maybe it was just kind of the All American Girl kind of thing. KH: Yes. WomenHistory Historical DE: A lot of people think of the nurses who went to Vietnam as kind of the All American Girls, whatever that means. Oral KH: Right. DE: [Chuckles] I have a problem with that kind of thing anyway, because why can’t black girls or Hispanic girls or Jewish girls be All American Girls? Minnesota’sMinnesota KH: Oh, yes, there are definite connotations to that idea. DE: So then my dad had told me about this, so I thought, when is it on? I’ll watch one. Kim, you don’t know this, but I never watch TV. I never watch TV; Mike and I didn’t own a TV for the first fifteen years of our marriage. Our children grew up without television. So I went over to a friend’s and decided to watch an episode of China Beach, and I was really troubled by it. It just so happened to be an episode where the white woman, I think played by Marg Helgenberger, was a prostitute or whatever. I just felt that the role of the Red Cross women was so demeaning. This episode was a lot about sex and an awful lot about drinking. I was just really disturbed by the 63 whole thing in a different way than I’m disturbed about M*A*S*H*. I never could watch M*A*S*H* either, because M*A*S*H*, to me, so much of it was like Vietnam that it brought back memories that I just didn’t . It’s like, I’ve been there. I’ve seen the real thing. Why would I watch M*A*S*H*? Plus, it’s not funny. I couldn’t see the comedy in a lot of it. There was Hot Lips coming out of the tent zipping up her pants, you know, after the men had been in. KH: Right. DE: You know, the whole connotation that women who went into the war zone were just kind of there for the men . Although I’ve heard so many people talk positively about M*A*S*H*, so I’m open-minded that M*A*S*H* has done a good thing for this country, because if it wasn’t for M*A*S*H*, a lot of people wouldn’t know there had even been a war in Korea. KH: Right. DE: So if it made people aware that people were dying in Korea andVeterans that there was a war there and there were American troops there, well, then that can’t be all bad. Anyway, I watched this China Beach episode, but that was closer to home because that was Vietnam. I was so disturbed by it. I could not even think of watching it again. I felt like they were exploiting our service on a lot of different fronts: the sex, the booze, the drama. This one episode I watched—I forget the plot—I thought, Vietnamwho wrote this? SomeSociety twenty-year-old who didn’t know what he or she was doing and had never beenProject to Vietnam? It was so soap opera-ish. But, you have to remember, I have a very discerning eye. For me, I’m sure I was thinking if they’re going to do something about our service in Vietnam, it should be a documentary. Do the real thing. Don’t make it up. WomenHistory KH: Right. Historical DE: There’s already so much misinformation out there.