The 71st is a labor of love close to 10 years in the making—but it’s something that’s been in my heart since I was a kid, watching reruns of M*A*S*H on rainy afternoons at my grandmother’s apartment. In college, one of my professors was the late Jack Chatfield, a Vietnam veteran who specialized in the war’s history. I was especially fascinated by the role of women in the war, and I felt there were important stories to be told. He passed in 2014, and I began writing this show in his honor two years later.

In film and in popular culture, Vietnam has been largely portrayed through the eyes of soldiers and not through the eyes of the more than 11,000 women who served. But for women, Vietnam was incredibly important: it was the first war to see not one but two female one-star brigadier generals, the first female African-American Lieutenant Colonel of the Army, and the first Black female Colonel in the USAF. The nurses in each corps—all volunteers—not only saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers but also changed the face of medicine in the United States. As these women returned from the operating rooms of the field hospitals, they realized that they could become much more than nurses. After Vietnam, the yearly medical school graduation rate for women increased from 350 to 2,000 per year. Vietnam also saw the deaths of eight female nurses on the front lines—in this war, women “flew medevac,” went to the front lines, and had the front lines brought into their very own backyard.

Any experience, even war, is rarely one thing or the other. Life is a mix of pain, laughter, and love. M*A*S*H taught me that: they made us love the characters, they made us cry, and most importantly—they made us laugh. From all my research into nurses’ experiences in Vietnam, that same pattern emerges. There was almost unbearable pain and suffering, but there was also love, friendship, and laughter. There were nights spent partying, and there were practical jokes. There were hilarious military etiquette faux pas, moments of dark humor in the wards, and dirty jokes told to soldiers in pain. People aren’t one-dimensional; shows shouldn’t be either.

In a very big way, these characters are my friends. I know them inside and out—I laugh at their jokes, I cry with them, and I’ve watched them fall in love. That’s why I’ve written almost half a season of the show! When I look at historical photographs of the Pleiku base, I half expect that motley crew to show up in the background, smiling. I hope you consider The 71st as a story worth telling to the world.

And I hope you like my “friends” as much as I do.

I was lucky enough to grow up in NYC with an artistic family that valued creativity in all forms and emphasized the fact that movies, music, and writing could reach people in unique ways and form emotional connections. I grew up watching classic movies from the greats like Billy Wilder and Stanley Donen, and when I wasn’t watching movies, I was busy reading any book I could get my hands on.

After graduating from Trinity College at twenty, I worked briefly for The New York Times. But I knew I wanted to get back to creative endeavors, so I began writing again when I moved to Los Angeles. In 2019, I produced, cast, and set-designed the award-winning short film, Cannonball, a dark comedy about a type-A Brentwood mom who hires a hitman. Shot in 2 days in the California desert, Cannonball went on to win at 8 festivals, including Soho International, Vail, and Edmonton, and screened in over 30 festivals from Oaxaca to Taormina.

In 2019, I was also a Blue Cat Finalist for my short film, Sunshine, which also made the Second Round of the 2019 Austin Film Festival and was a 2021 Quarterfinalist for HollyShorts.

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