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Korea, 1972: FIFTY YEARS AGO
Hawkeye never expected to step foot in Korea again.
If anyone had asked him, in 1953, if he’d ever go back, the answer would’ve been no.
And yet, here he is, a fine layer of Korean dirt covering the boots he’s had since 1950, standing in a green field just outside of Uijeongbu.
It’s a green field now, he thinks as he squints in the hot July sun, but less than twenty years ago, it was – unfathomably – home.
Once, he could walk it blindfolded, but now it’s an idyllic field of grass and flowers, and Hawkeye is lost without the usual landmarks.
That being said, the company is the same.
Sure, they’re all a little older and greyer – Potter and Father Mulcahy have matching sets of hearing aids now, Trapper’s curls are closer to grey than brown, and Radar needs a map to find his hairline – but they’re together again.
And then there’s a wry voice beside him. “Feel like you just stepped into a time machine?”
Hawkeye grins, turning to look at BJ. “You know, you’re getting sentimental in your old age.”
BJ shrugs good-naturedly. “Sue me.”
“Pardon me, sir,” Trapper says, coming up on Hawkeye’s other side, “But I’m trying to get to the Emerald City – do you know where that is?”
“Sure, we just follow the Yalu Brick Road!”
“Alright then, which one of us is Dorothy? And which of us are friends of Dorothy?”
Hawkeye leers at him. “The age-old question.”
“The better question is where’s the swamp?”
“Look for a place where nothing can grow.”
Trapper turns and yells, “Hey Radar!”
Radar turns at the name, even though he hasn’t gone by Radar in twenty years. “What?”
“You have any idea where the swamp used to be?”
Radar, used to remembering coordinates and call signs and junk like that, tilts his head as if he’s thinking. Then he points his finger and says, “About twenty paces in that direction.”
“Thanks.”
Hawkeye links arms with Trapper and BJ. “Shall we follow the Yalu Brick Road, gents?”
BJ grins. “Off to see the wizard.”
Hawkeye counts out twenty paces in his head, their shoes sending up a cloud of dust as they walk, and he stops at twenty.
“Uh forgive me, driver, but I asked to be dropped off at the Swamp,” Trap jokes.
Hawkeye stares down at the dirt – and that’s all it is, just a patch of dirt – thinking about how he should feel different.
A not-insignificant portion of his life was spent here, but there’s no jolt of recognition, no spark, no flood of memories.
Just a patch of dirt and birds singing in the trees.
“We sure gave this place a lot of importance,” BJ says, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Hard to forget that at the end of the day it was just…”
“Dirt,” Trapper finishes.
“Now gentlemen, is that any way to refer to our humble abode? I even had the maid bring in fresh dirt for the floors.”
Trap steps back behind BJ with a flourish, gesturing towards the nonexistent door of the swamp. “After you, my good sir.”
“Oh, you’re too kind.”
“Not at all.”
“Rather,” Hawkeye adds, following BJ. “A drink, lads?”
“Yes, I think we’ll have it in the library… after the hunt.”
Hawkeye walks over to where the still might have been, and pulls a flask from his pocket. “Aged beautifully, I imagine.”
“Hawk, that better not be any of ours,” BJ warns.
Trapper smiles. “Can’t be, it woulda burned a hole right through the flask.”
“I gave up bootlegging – my legs look better in heels – so no, it’s not that vintage.”
“Alright,” BJ sighs, giving in first. “Hand it over.”
“Here.”
BJ unscrews the cap and takes a swig, his face screwing up as he swallows. “God. You sure this isn’t ours?”
“This is liquid courage. We brewed only the finest liquid cowardice.”
“With such rave reviews…” Trap takes the flask from BJ and sniffs it. “This smells like shoe polish.”
“Do you polish your shoes with scotch?”
“Only when I’m so hungover I throw up.” Trap grins – until he takes a sip. “Phew, Hawk, that’s pretty strong – but where’s the rest of it?”
“Huh?”
“One itty bitty flask for all of us? That’s like putting out one specimen bottle to catch Niagara Falls!”
“My man will be along in a minute with the rest,” Hawkeye says, adopting a British accent. “If we can carry on ‘til then.”
“Rather.”
BJ shakes his head fondly, looking between the two of them.
For a second, it’s as though they were all here together, trading drinks and jokes like old friends.
Until there’s an annoyed voice that still carries, echoing down the hill. “If you lunatics are quite finished!”
Hawkeye turns, shielding his eyes against the sun, only to see Charles standing there with his hands on his hips.
“He doesn’t look happy.”
BJ rolls his eyes. “Does he ever look happy?”
Hawkeye cups his hands around his mouth and calls back, “Come join us for a drink in the Swamp, Charles!”
Even from here, Hawkeye can see Charles shaking his head.
“Boy, he musta been a barrel of laughs to live with.”
“Next to Frank, Jack the Ripper would’ve been an improvement.”
“And a better surgeon.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
“You’ll have a hard time of it,” Trap says, turning the flask upside down. “We’re all out.”
Hawkeye snaps his fingers. “Damn.”
“Y’know, fellas, either I’m a lot more drunk than I should be, or this place is actually kinda pretty.”
“Well,” Hawkeye says, looking around. “I don’t know about drunk, but you do need your eyes checked.”
“My eyes are twenty-twenty, same as they were the day I left this crummy place!”
“Ahem.”
They look up, only to see Charles standing there, his arms crossed. “If you gentlemen are through acting like lunatics, everyone else is waiting.”
“Is Radar with everyone else?” Hawkeye asks.
“Yes.”
“Step into our humble home, Charles. You remember it, don’t you? You slept over there, in the McArthur suite.”
Charles doesn’t spare a glance for the patch of dirt he used to call home. “Are you coming?”
“Sure thing, Charles.” Hawkeye turns to Trapper and BJ. “Shall we, gents? There’s booze in them there hills.”
“Where?”
“Radar.”
“Radar?”
“Radar’s holding a six-pack of beers for me,” Hawkeye explains, and when he sees the bemused looks on his friends’ faces, he just shrugs. “I like to think ahead.”
“As opposed to thinking behind.”
“Well, he’s a surgeon, not a proctologist.”
Charles rolls his eyes, and starts walking away.
“I guess that’s our cue,” BJ says, and steps out, pretending to hold the door open. “After you.”
“Oh, thank you.”
The sun is high in the sky now, a soft breeze rustling their clothes, and Trap is right – it is almost pretty.
Hawkeye doesn’t remember Korea being beautiful.
“Hard to believe how nice it looks,” Trap comments as they start walking up the hill to where the chopper pad used to be.
“Prime real estate,” Hawkeye grouses. “Paid for in blood.”
“A pound of flesh,” BJ offers, a little breathlessly.
“Well I don’t care what any else says, I wouldn’t build a summer home here – never mind fight a war over it.”
“It’s all the rage right now,” Trap says.
“Yeah, I mean what’s a war nowadays? A bit of land in Asian that people shoot each other over.”
“We’re really great that way.”
Hawkeye focuses on the incline as they walk, thinking of Vietnam. “Nothing’s changed in twenty years.”
Trapper shrugs. “War is war.”
“And hell is hell,” BJ mutters.
“This sure doesn’t look like hell.”
“It wasn’t,” Hawkeye says, looking between them, the two people who made Korea the most bearable. “It was worse, most of the time.”
“And what about the other times?”
Hawkeye grins. “The other times, I had you.”
BJ smiles to himself as they keep walking, but Trap is still looking out at the landscape. “Hard to believe that over there, there’s doctors patching up combat wounds the way we used to.”
“And the cycle continues. Maybe in another twenty years, Vietnam’ll look like this.”
“Yeah, and by then the war will be in some other place nobody’s heard of, and other doctors will be patching up other kids.”
Hawkeye closes his eyes for a second, overwhelmed. “You think it ever ends?”
“If you ask Plato, it ends for us when we die – but the war keeps going.”
“Yeah… that sounds about right.”
“It did end for us though,” BJ says suddenly. “It did. We went home.”
“Did we?”
“You boys look awful gloomy.”
They look up, only to see Sherman Potter leaning against one of the rocks on the chopper pad. Still spry at eighty-two, even he looks a little winded. The rest of the gang stands at his side.
“We were just talking about the war.”
“Seems that’s all anyone can talk about,” Sherman grumbles. “You boys promised me a real wingding for this reunion, and it’s not even a hootenanny.”
“I think it’s only natural to be reflective, Colonel,” Father Mulcahy says. “After all, this was a place of great significance… and greater loss.”
“Maybe, Padre, but whatever happened to counting our blessings?”
“We’ll do that tomorrow when we bring the family out here,” BJ says patiently, sitting down on the ground and stretching out his legs. “God, I can’t believe I used to run up that hill.”
“I bet you if choppers came around that mountain right now, you’d still move pretty fast.”
As if on cue, they all turn and look, but there’s only the mountain range, purple against the bright blue sky and the sound of the birds in the trees.
“You know, I never realized how nice a view there was up here,” Margaret says, crossing her arms.
“It sure is pretty as a picture,” Potter agrees.
“Hard to believe it’s the same place.”
“Believe me, sir, it is. The coordinates checked out,” Radar says nervously.
“I overheard one of the concierges at the hotel saying that it’s government land now. They want to make this place a park,” Margaret says.
“A park?” Hawkeye repeats. “Here?”
“Have to dig up the minefield first.”
“Yeah,” Max says, clearly trying not to smile. “Apparently they want to spiff this place up.”
“A beautification project,” Hawkeye says, shaking his head. “You're kidding."
“Feels strange, imaginin’ something nice here,” Trap says. “Feels like there oughta be a sign or something.”
"There was. We took it down."
"Still, there should be something."
“What, like a plaque? I survived Korea and all I got was this lousy plaque?”
“Don’t be such a cynic, Hawk, you got more than that.”
“Yeah, I got the most surgical experience a doctor could ask for. But none of us asked for it.”
“We did good work here, Hawk, I mean… we were ahead of all the medical journals.”
“Yes, because we didn’t have to ask the ethics board to set up shop in the middle of a war,” Hawk says sardonically. “I don’t think the benefit outweighs the cost here, Beej.”
“Pierce, loath as I am to agree with Hunnicutt… we were pioneers.”
“Right and they sent us patients on the return journey of the Mayflower.”
“Hawk-”
“How you gonna keep ‘em down in the OR after they’ve seen Pusan?” Hawkeye asks, and he can’t get over how strange it all is, being back together when all they had to tie them together was the war. “Well I’ve seen Pusan, and Uijeongbu, and Tokyo. And I don’t care if we were the best damn surgeons in the world. It wasn’t worth it.”
“We saved a lot of lives that came through here, Pierce,” Margaret points out.
“And touched a good many souls, besides.”
Hawkeye smiles. “I guess it really is just like old times. I’m breaking down and you’re all building me up.”
“That’s why we’re here, Hawk,” Trap says. “We were the best body shop in the war.”
“Saving everybody in Seoul.”
“Coleman Hawkins, right?”
Hawkeye blinks. “Right.”
“Pierce, I know it’s been a long time, and you’re not under my authority anymore but a bit of friendly advice?”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“Accept the fact that it happened,” Sherman advises. “Be angry, be sad, but somewhere in there, maybe try and be a bit grateful. After all, we’re all still here. And there are a lot of kids here today because of us.”
“I guess so.”
“And at the end of the day, no matter what this place used to be… that time is over.”
Hawkeye is too busy staring out at the landscape, a crazy plan forming in his mind. “Hey… I just through of something.”
“What?”
“The time capsule.”
“What about it?” BJ asks.
“Do you think we should… we should leave it here?”
“Son, it hasn’t been a hundred years. It hasn’t even been a fifth of that time.”
“But-”
“It wasn’t meant for us, Pierce,” Margaret says softly. “It’s meant for whoever comes after us.”
“Right, for posterity.”
“Pierce, if I hear even one posterior remark out of you-”
Hawkeye waves his hands. “No, no, just… to them, it’ll just be a collection of junk, won’t it? Just like this’ll only be a piece of land.”
“We can only hope that it’ll be a reminder of a more barbaric time – but also a reminder of the care provided here.”
“So people can remember us.”
“Let the past bury its dead, Hawkeye,” Father Mulcahy says softly.
Hawkeye nods. “I just… it seems wrong that we spent so much time here and there’s not even a trace.”
“There is. You just can’t see it.”
Hawkeye turns and faces them, his family. They’re all staring expectantly back at him, and it sends a shiver down his spine.
They’re all older and more tired, and although the common cause binding them together has dissolved, they’re all still here.
“It’s hard to believe,” he says out loud. “Another place, another time, we might never have met each other. Instead, we were all players in the same theatre of the macabre.”
“A profound experience for such a short period of time,” Charles murmurs.
“Pierce, you wanted to know what we got out of this war, and there is one thing nobody mentioned,” Potter adds. “You got us.”
Hawkeye smiles. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Maybe it doesn’t make it worth it,” BJ says. “But it makes a difference.”
“It makes all the difference.”
“Like it or not, Hawkeye, we’re family.”
Hawkeye remembers saying something similar to Henry, a long time ago. Well there are families, and then there are families.
“You know,” he starts. “I didn’t think I’d ever go back to Korea again. I’d just as soon have never come back – not for anything. But… getting to see all of you again, getting to be with you… we’ll forever be linked by this. And I’m glad, because… you’re my family.”
“Hear hear.”
Hawkeye’s words ring off the mountains of Korea and echo over the remains of what was once a bustling army camp, as he smiles at his friends – his family – with a familiar toast:
“Finest kind.”