By the time I was ten years-old, I had probably watched at least 200 hours of M*A*S*H episodes. When the final episode, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen,” aired in February 1983, for some forgotten (but surely very frustrating at the time) reason, I didn’t watch it. My friend, Rebecca Mansfield, certainly tired of my whining about missing the show, invited me to watch the copy her family had recorded. (Our family did not purchase a VCR until I was in my twenties.) Rebecca M., our friend Lori Burningham and I, watched the show in Rebecca’s basement one day after school that week. We were in fourth grade. Lori and Rebecca thought I was crazy because I cried through half of the show. (Really, how could you not cry when Hawkeye realized that the chicken was, in fact, a baby? The rest of the show was one emotional scene after another.) I estimate that by the time I had finished high school, I had seen another 200 hours of M*A*S*H.
So is it any surprise that I’m now married to a tall, dark-haired Army doctor? (Mark is, of course, much more handsome, witty and emotionally intelligent than Hawkeye Pierce.) Because Mark will, eventually, have a nearly identical workspace in common with Hawkeye, I have been reflecting (with a little help from Google and Wikipedia) on what I absorbed during all those hours in front of the tube:
*War is hell. That is the refrain I remember best from the show.
*Laughing is a good way to cope with turmoil.
*The Korean War was not a “war.” It was a police action. That was one of the few questions I answered correctly in AP American History. Perhaps if I had spent 400 hours studying American history, I would have
passed the AP exam. But then I would have missed out on American Heritage at Ricks. That was a good class. Alas, I digress . . .
*Army doctors, on the whole, are not “regular Army.”
*Mildred Potter was the quintessential "good Army wife." Colonel Potter said of her, “There is a woman back in Hannibal, MO, who’s [gracefully] spent the better part of thirty years waiting on me to come back from one tour of duty or another.” (Sincere thanks to the many Mildred Potters I've been privileged to know!) I’m sure Mildred never sent Colonel Potter the checkbook the way Elaine Blake did to Henry. I guess it’s poor form to send the checkbook, but I am thankful that I could call/email/im/webcam Mark for questions with on-line bill pay. And just like Peg Hunnicutt did for B.J., I do intend to detail Lily’s potty training in correspondence to Mark.
*Speaking of the Hunnicutts, Hawkeye left B.J.’s daughter, Erin, something in his will:
“I leave you a list of all of the young men your daddy took care of while he was in Korea. Many of them have him to thank for being alive today. I want you to understand why he had to be away during those first years of your life.”
I have a few passionately held ideas about why Mark’s time away from our young children will actually serve a greater good. I hope to refine those thoughts, align them with truth, and crystallize them in a way that can bring comfort to three very blessed American babies who will miss their father terribly.
*In the final episode, we hear a live recording of journalist Robert Pierpoint come over the PA system as the last shots of the war are fired. After several seconds of silence, Pierpoint announces: "There it is. That's the sound of peace."
We’re praying for the sound of peace.
