(3 of 6)
Well, no. M*A*S*H was about doctors in Korea, and it drew from real life and death as faithfully as many documentaries. Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds, who developed the show for TV, talked with dozens of surgeons and nurses who had served in Korea; they even visited a Korean MASH base for more memories. Later, Burt Metcalfe, who took over as producer after Gelbart and Reynolds left, continued the tradition. "We've spoken to almost every doctor who was in Korea," Metcalfe claims. "At least 60% of the plots dealing with medical or military incidents were taken from real life." Says Reynolds: "These guys gave us details we never would have thought of. They kept us honest." Gelbart recalls one doctor's remark: "He said, 'In the winter it is so cold in the O.R. that when the surgeon cuts into a patient, steam rises from the body, and the surgeon will warm his hands over the open wound.' In the last show I wrote and directed, 'The Interview,' I had Father Mulcahy use those exact words when he was asked if the war had changed him."
Dear Dad,
A year in Korea and no end in sight. Last week we suffered a visitation by some brigadier general who tried to boost morale by telling us that we are bringing democracy to this green and peasant land. That was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I felt like telling His Belligerence that what this country needs is a good five-cent czar. My tentmate, Major Frank Burns, is even more amusing, if you get your laughs from psychotic paranoia complicated by a spine-wide streak of yellow. He thinks we're here to save Korea from the Koreans, and that when the war is over Seoul will be colonized by the Fort Wayne Kiwanis Club. I couldn't help breaking into a chorus of the Ethel Merman song: "There's no vinism like chauvinism like no vinism I know."
I guess Frank is just the carrier. The disease, the bubonic plague, is knowing that our O.R. is just a three-day pass that wounded kids are given before being shipped back to the front. We knit and purl and offer kind words and jokes so bad even Milton Berle wouldn't steal them. For me, joking is therapeutic. It's the only way I have of opening my mouth without screaming.
Here I am babbling, Dad, and I know you brook no babble. But what can you expect of a barefoot surgeon from Crabapple Cove, Me. ? I can't wait to come home, hug you and then log six or seven months' sleep.
Love, Hawkeye