Work Text:
Dear Dad,
Today’s been cloudy. Nothing much going on. The first few days were busy, lots of people in green yelling orders. Somebody told me my socks weren’t regulation-- my socks! A lot of the non-coms– that’s the enlisted guys without an MD around here, for you lucky bastards back home– saluted me before they realized I didn’t care.
We’ve had a few casualties– that’s what they call them here, funny word for it– come in. A lot of the kids don’t look old enough to drive. Remember that photo of me at my eighth grade graduation? The one where I have the busted lip from trying to impress Rhona Layton by standing on top of the monkey bars? They all look young like that. It’s not nice.
The other doctors here are fine. There’s Trapper John, who I already wrote you about. He’s a good doctor, around my age, and can drink me under the table without batting an eye. We share a tent, which is slightly bigger and sturdier than your average camping kind, and much less fun. The third member of our Boy Scout troop is a “doctor” by the name of Frank Burns. He can hardly operate. I’m convinced he got his degree by mail. Frank is very big on the capital-A Army and capital-P Procedures. He’s the only one besides this lady major that does the calisthenics in the morning, and he’s not much to look at in a pair of shorts and an undershirt. The lady major, on the other hand…
We call her Hot Lips, for good reason (she has frequent male callers to her private tent, including our very own, very MARRIED Frank Burns), but she’s phenomenal in the OR. If the entire US military was replaced by women, it’d be 1000% more efficient. Our wars would last as long as a hockey game. If Hot Lips ran them, they’d last as long as a coffee break here, which is to say, short.
Hot Lips is doing her very best to make a man out of me. I wish her the best of luck, but I don’t think it’s working. I’ve had two citations for insubordination. Technically, I’m supposed to be on bed arrest until 1972. Unfortunately for Hot Lips, the casualties keep coming, so I’ve escaped scot-free. Really, Dad, at this point, bed arrest would be an absolute treat.
Hope things are good back home.
Your lovingly drafted son, Hawkeye
Dear Son (or should I say, Captain Pierce?),
Things are good as can be, although we are all missing you. The Wilson family two streets down is expecting their ninth child in as many years! Sadie Miller from next door has started to collect donations for the Red Cross. I gave her five dollars, but told her that any more donations are coming out of your allowance. As you’re in the negatives— yes, I do remember Rhoda, as well as the broken window you conveniently left out of your anecdote—, I suspect it will be some time until the Red Cross sees a red cent from me. All my pocket money goes towards sending you chocolate and other contraband. By the way, how are those long johns?
Calisthenics? You’re making the army sound like summer camp… In all honesty, Ben, you’re holding up better than I would. Better than most men for that matter. Hemingway once wrote that war, no matter how justified, is still a crime. How do you figure that applies to a police action? Keep your wits and your sense of justice around you, and you’ll be alright. I know it’s not much comfort from a man who’s never been to war, but you’ve always had a way of making it through trying times by sheer stubbornness alone.
You've got a host of nicknames there: Radar, Trapper (must be a story behind that one), and Hot Lips, not to mention yourself. Am I correct to assume she’s a nurse? She sounds like a regular spitfire.
Now, as for that Frank Burns, well, for every top half of a graduating class, there’s a bottom half, and they can't all become psychologists... I'll stop while I'm ahead.
Stay out of the bad kind of trouble, Ben.
Love,
Dad
Dear Dad,
Very subtle, hinting at grandchildren there. As you’ll remember from the first day of med school, humans are not yet capable of asexual reproduction. So hold off on knitting any baby blankets.
Hemingway should write a book about this stupid police action. It’s an utter waste of human life. Not just the kids. The doctors, the nurses, all the enlisted men. I hate it.
Sorry. I know I’m angry at the wrong person. The long johns were really nice. Everyone liked them. Even Hot Lips and Frank.
From your loving son,
Hawkeye
Dear Son,
Yes, I remember that lecture clearly.
Would you like me to send anything else for your friends? Female or otherwise?
Love, your police-action-loathing father
Dear Dad,
You’re absolutely preposterous. I miss you. Even if you’re trying to set me up from across the world.
Trapper says he’d like for you to mail his wife and kids. He’ll pay for express shipping, and be sure to put a couple holes in the box. Frank snarled at me— and I mean snarled. He’s been in a real tiff lately. Could be the itching powder I sprinkled in his shorts. Henry Blake, our CO, asked if you had any Cuban cigars. He just had a son. Well, his wife just had a son, all the way back in Illinois. He got the call today. Who knows when he’ll get to meet the kid?
It’s so fucked up
I’m so mad
I know I dont understand but
I wish
Anyways. I asked everyone in camp I saw. Just for kicks. Radar, the company clerk, said he really missed his Mom’s water pie. It’s one of those depression desserts, and it sounds like something straight out of our mess hall. I guess I didn’t realize how good I had it until I came here. I never had to worry about having food to eat, only whether or not you'd burn it. You'd take me to the city for shows and people-watching. I remember Mom and I used to stay up late and eat ice cream on the porch when you were working late in the summer. It was a really nice childhood, and I mean that. A lot of the kids here don’t even get one. Radar here isn't even old enough to drink back home, and he’s running an entire MASH unit. Anyways, from what I hear, Iowa, where Radar is from, never got the memo that the depression’s over. He also said he’d like to see his pet cow, so, if you figure out a way to arrange that…
Hot Lips made a very Frank Burns sort of sound at me when I asked her what she wanted you to mail. It was the kind of sound where she’s both astonished and aggravated that I’m talking to her outside of the OR. She didn’t have her usual mask of makeup on, and her hair was sort of dark. (Believe it or not, Frank Burns bleaches it. He’d make a better hairdresser than a surgeon. It doesn’t look half bad). She asked me why I was always bothering her, and didn’t I have anything better to do. I said no, because I didn’t. I’d already sewn all of the disgusting socks Frank leaves on the floor inside his pillowcase.
She gave me a weird look. She asked me who was asking, and I said, my dad. My dear old dad. Your letters and accompanying packages are legendary in this camp, second only to Private Larsen, who's girlfriend is a showgirl in Las Vegas. She frowned even more and asked me why I didn’t have anyone else to write to, and why did I always have to tell everyone I was writing to my dumb dad* anyways? Why did I have to show off the stupid long johns that my dear old dad so kindly sent me? She started to cry a little… Hot Lips crying is a very terrifying thing. We were alone in the mess tent, aside from an orderly who was fast asleep in his mashed… something, and I didn’t know what to do. Women crying always make me queasy, even in the movies. That’s why I can’t watch Ingrid Bergmann films. I tried telling her that, but it made it worse. She said something that would burn the page if I wrote it, but it went something like this:
Pierce**, you don’t know how to talk like a REDACTED REDACTING human being! All you do is say strange things from television and annoy me beyond all REDACTED belief! You know, some persons in this camp don’t have a REDACTED family to write home to, and would much prefer if you kept your family affairs to yourself!
She also told me a very imaginative location to store my stationary in, if you catch my drift. I felt a little bad, though. I know other people here aren’t close with their families back home. But I like hearing about Trapper’s kids, and eating their God awful baking. Even Frank’s horrific life is kind of fun to listen to. I tried to think of what kind of natural environment a Hot Lips would grow in. All I could come up with was a military research facility, the kind in the desert, where they keep the aliens. It didn’t seem like a very great place to be from.
So, I told her to sit down and I’d bring her a cup of coffee. I didn’t think she’d listen to me (I wouldn’t) but she did. I dumped about half the container of sugar in it. I asked her why she had a problem with you. I mean, I could understand her dislike for me. But, to bite the hand of the guy who’s mailing you longjohn's?
She said her dad was a general in the army. Biiiiiig surprise! She said she wrote him every Monday morning, so that he’d get it as soon as possible. All she got back were stuffy replies from his secretary, or nothing at all. By this time, she’d calmed down a little, but her eyes were still all wet and red. Because I’m a gentleman, I offered her my handkerchief, but because I’m a gentleman at war (sorry, police action) I offered her a strip of gauze I happened to have in my pocket.
I felt pretty awful for the way I treated her. It was nothing bad, I know you raised me to not be a total slimeball, but I’d always rib her in the OR, or tease her about being with Frank. She can be pretty terrible too, for what it’s worth, but still. I felt bad knowing that I had you to write to, and she had no one. I apologized– not for her dad, because she’d kill me for being such a sap– for being a bee in her proverbial bonnet. In this case, a bee in her helmet.
She thanked me, not in a snide way, as her companion Frank Burns is oh so fond of doing. I said that you could send her long johns, but they probably wouldn’t make it here until July. She said thanks again, but it was alright. I didn’t ask for my handkerchief back.
We sat there for a while. I felt a little scared– if you met her, you’d get it.
She said she didn’t mean to get so angry. I told her I felt like one of her cute little nurses. She scowled, but she didn’t threaten to put me on bed arrest or go tell poor Henry Blake about my misbehaviour, so I lived to see another beautiful day in Korea. She even called me Hawkeye, instead of what she usually does: YOU (in an angry tone), Pierce (in an even angrier tone), or worst of all, CAPTAIN PIERCE. I don’t think calling me by my given name (seeing as it was given to me, by you) will be a regular thing. She kind of winced like she drank rat poison when she said it, but it was a nice gesture anyways.
We got to talking. She told me that she missed five things from back home: hot water, Goldwater’s department store, Hydrox cookies, true friends, and buying a brand new Elizabeth Arden lipstick every month. My list is pretty much the same, although I just don’t have the complexion for lipstick. I’m much more of a natural beauty, don't you think? Besides, I’ve got some good friends here, and they like me for me. Longjohns and lipstick or not. ***
Anyways. Pay for the chocolate and lipstick from my allowance. I’ll pay you back, I promise. Sorry about the long letter.
Your loving son,
Hawkeye
* Personally, I still think you've got your wits about you.
** It pains her to call me Hawkeye. About as much as it pains me to call Frank Frank, and not Ferretface, or other choice words...
*** Trapper says I could use a good hour in the tanning bed and a standing appointment at the hairdresser's.
Dear my loving son Hawkeye,
Well, I tried mailing Goldwater’s, but there wasn’t a box big enough at the post office to fit it. And the hot water was just a soggy mess. Don't even get me started on the cow...
That said, I managed to send along the following:
1 Maine Daily newspaper
3 boxes Hydrox cookies
4 boxes Oreo cookies (much better than Hydrox… and a better name, too)
2 wool socks/hand warmers/sleeping bags, knitted by Mrs. McCall (I sent your thanks, and she’ll be expecting a photo of you wearing them, whichever way you decide to)
2 Elizabeth whatsit lipsticks (the salesgirl asked if I’d upset my wife! I said it was unlikely, seeing as I haven’t spoken to her in twenty-odd years. Your mother would have gotten quite the kick out of her reaction.)
2 pairs long underwear, one women’s, and one men’s
1 copy How to Get Along With Girls, which I think you’ll find helpful reading.
Send my best wishes to you and your Hot Lips. I remember your mother scaring the living daylights out of me when we first met.
Love, Dad
Dear Mr. Pierce, Sr.
I wanted to thank you for the cookies and lipsticks you so generously sent me. I appreciate them and your kindness greatly. Hawkeye told me that he sends his regards as well.
Sincerely,
Major Margaret Houlihan