letters-from-the-4077

[letters-from-the-4077]

4x23: Deluge

Dear Dad,

Believe it or not, it’s all gone to shit here. We heard about the attack that the Chinese mounted, but more than that, we got all the wounded from that attack. You’d think that the 4077th was the only MASH that this man’s Army had. 

I don’t think I’ve ever had a worse operating session in my entire life. I think I was on my feet for about three days straight and barely shifted from foot to foot during most of it. Hope you were listening closely, because you could’ve heard my knees across the whole Atlantic when I did finally move outside the OR.

Apparently Klinger just put me in a free wheelchair and brought me back to the Swamp, but I was asleep the second the last patient was moved under my last nose. I slept for over twelve hours. Twelve! The last time I managed that was the first day of summer after I finished junior high. I didn’t think my body was capable of even managing that anymore, but I guess there’s full of  surprises.

The conditions here are deplorable. We’re missing a lightbulb and a wall in OR, and if that doesn’t tell you enough about this situation, nothing will. The first thing I ate after a 72 hour stint in surgery and another 12 in a coma was WWII surplus from a lead can.

It feels inhuman.

How can people do this to each other? How can we just sit back and let it happen? 

What the hell is wrong with all of us?

I’m sorry, dad. I wish I could say something else. I wish I could write to you and not keep relaying the monotony out here and the everything and everything and everything that’s just hell. I wish there was a single decent thing I could say, but other than a few people who seem to care, there’s nothing.

Give Crabapple my best.

Love, Hawkeye

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[letters-from-the-4077]

4x18: Hawkeye

Dear Dad,

I am concussed. So so so many concussions. You’d think my brain was made of gelatin the way it wobbles and wibbles. I don’t think wibbles is a word.

Mr. BJ is writing this letter for me. Actually, it’s Dr. BJ. Dr. Hunnicutt of the 4077th MASH unit.

My head hurts. But I wanted to you know that I am okay. 

You know what’s funny? If I didn’t write to you to tell you that I’m okay, you would never have known that there was a chance I’m not okay, which means that this letter is net zero information. The unknown and being not okay cancel each other out and then you carry the two and then you get me, your son, being okay.

Your bestest okay-est son,

Hawkeye

.

Dr. Pierce,

This is BJ writing now. I suppose I also wrote the top bit, but only because I don’t think Hawkeye would’ve been able to hold a pen and focus on the page at the same time, and even he seemed to realize that. Correspondence when it comes to Hawkeye is surprisingly difficult. Lots of “stops” and “wait don’t actually write that.” Hopefully I got enough of what Hawkeye was trying to say. Even concussed, his brain moves faster than his mouth.

He is going to be okay, just so you know. Nobody’s really quite sure what happened and he’s either too concussed or too guarded (or both) to tell us anything more than the basics, but he’s back safe at the 4077th, and nobody’s about to let him out of their sight for the next couple of days. I’m sitting on an extra bed in post-op now, writing this letter to you. Hawkeye’s finally resting and I felt that what he told you might’ve caused more worry than what should’ve been assuaged, which is why I’ve decided to continue it. 

I hope that’s not too forward of me. I’d write you a whole new letter but I wouldn’t want that to cause even more concern, and besides, paper’s in high demand out here. Everything’s in high demand, actually. 

But Hawkeye is going to be just fine, if not in need of a few weeks of bed rest, God help me when I have to actually tell him that. I’m sure you know better than I, but Hawk’s not too into staying in one place and resting until it’s the only thing he seems to do. 

He hasn’t confirmed it yet, but Radar—that’s the company clerk, I’m sure Hawkeye’s told you about him—said that there was an overturned jeep next to a small local village, and he’s pretty sure Hawkeye was in it when it crashed. Radar said he didn’t see any evidence of shelling or anything like that, so your guess is as good as ours as to why the jeep decided to roll over on its side in the first place. 

Hawkeye was due back from the 8063rd where he went down to help out because two of their surgeons came down with the flu, along with about half of  their nurses. Miraculously, we haven’t had any flu problems out here in the 4077th, but maybe we’re next in line. Whatever the case may be, Hawk’s jeep crashed on his way back and according to Radar and Hawkeye’s ramblings, a nice Korean family kept an eye on him for the better part of the day and sent one of their daughters to our camp to go collect him.

We took pictures the second Radar came in with Hawkeye, and even in his own state of being concussed, he had managed to diagnose himself with the right thing without any of our imaging. We merely confirmed what he had already announced: a skull fracture just behind his ear, on the fissure between his right parietal and temporal bones. I’d say it’s a minor fracture, but the skin is broken, and you know as well as I do that there’s really no such thing as a minor skull fracture. 

He’d been mostly alert and somewhat been able to follow conversations, but you never know with Hawkeye. Even on a good day, where he has zero skull fractures, his mind runs faster than the rest of ours. Jumping between thoughts has never been much of an anomaly, but I’ll be the first to say that it’s worse than normal.

But, I digress. He’s resting now, actually sleeping, and we’re all going to keep an eye on him. I’m writing this in the mid evening, and I don’t get off until 2200. Regardless, I’m going to spend the rest of the night in post-op to make sure that nothing happens during the night. We’ve already started him on saline and penicillin; saline for rehydration, and penicillin because nobody here wants to chance a skull fracture becoming infected. The phrase “preventive medicine” comes to mind, but I doubt any doctor but myself is thinking about that in Korea. 

You’re probably going to be getting another letter from Hawkeye when he wakes up. I don’t think he’s going to remember much of this past day, let alone the hour before finally falling asleep and the mumbling of words as he tried to get through a letter to you. He’s also going to probably downplay his injuries when he writes to you, which is another reason why I felt the need to take over this letter. 

I’m not sure if Hawkeye’s told you anything about me, but I have a daughter out by San Francisco, nearly 10 thousand miles away, and if anything had happened to her, I know that I’d want to know immediately, and with all the details. It might be different seeing as how Erin, that’s my girl, is only a few months old and Hawkeye is pushing 31, but I’m not convinced. This might be the naivety of a new parent coming through, but I get the feeling that no matter how old they get, you never stop worrying. 

I suppose I should reiterate it again: Hawkeye is going to be okay, and we’re all keeping an eye on him, even Margaret. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I think she truly cares about Hawkeye. He’s an easy person to care about. Almost too easy to worry about, some days. 

If anything else happens, I’ll get Radar to place a call to you so you don’t have to wait for these letters. I suppose if that’s going to happen, you’ll have already known about it, seeing as how postage delay is up to about two weeks out here. 

I think Hawkeye’s rambling might be rubbing off on me, and there’s really no other updates I can get at this time, so I’ll end it here and get this letter sent first class. 

Signed,

BJ Hunnicutt

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[letters-from-the-4077]

2x06: Kim

Dear Dad,

There are very few things in Korea that I could ever consider missing. Ironically, those few things are probably the only ones that aren’t going to come back to haunt me in nightmares for the rest of my life. 

We see bloodshed and dying kids and shrapnel on the good days, and send off boys with white sheets over their heads on the bad days. Or we would, if the army could afford to lose a few sheets. More often than not, the deceased go away on the same buses filled with the guys that managed to make it out.

Thousands of Korean civilians are getting caught up in this war. This Police Action. Which you’d think would make sense seeing as how it’s taking place in Korea, but nobody’s fooled by that. This isn’t a Korean War so much as it is a war taking place in Korea by chance. Sorry, Police Action. It gets me every time, you know that?

My point is, there’s very little to look forward to. Your letters are one of them, and the supply closet with rotating guests after an OR session is another. Especially now that I’ve managed to consistently sleep again. Consistent is a strong word, actually, but that’s neither here nor there.

I write to you today with almost good news! What a first, right? I can bet you that you weren’t expecting that one. So rarely is there a day that the sun actually feels like it’s shining down in a way that isn’t gunning to give us all horrendous sunburns. Even less so when children are involved, but for once, someone seemed to have taken pity on us for more than a single minute.

A kid came in, no older than eight years old, orphaned, ill, and unable to speak a lick of English. Now now, stick with me, I assure you this isn’t going to be as grim as it sounds. At first we tried to get Henry to track down his parents, and then Radar because we all know that kid’s got some uncanny power to find these things out, but nada. We came out blank.

Again, stick with me.

First of all, this kid was probably the most spoiled one in all of Korea for as long as we had him. The nurses adored him, and hell, even Margaret cooled down that fiery breath of her and showed her maternal side. Frank wasn’t quite as much of an imbecile as he always manages to be, and it’s like every single person in this whole damn camp knew that this kid was the most important thing in the world.

Kim, by the way. I realize I haven’t actually told you his name. A kid named Kim. But it’s not like we’re set up for keeping a kid at the 4077th, and we certainly aren’t authorized for it, so after we couldn't find his parents, the orphanage was the next on the list.

Which is just plain shit. It’s shit, dad. 

And clearly I was not the only one who felt that way, ’cause Trap barely hesitated a second before admitting that he’d like nothing more than to take Kim home and raise him with his daughters. As much as that guy hates being sincere—almost as much as I do—you could just tell he meant it.

Trapper’s a good dad. Not as good as you, don’t start getting insecure on me, but he’s a good dad. Stuck in a place about 9000 miles away from his girls, and yet he still manages to be paternalistic like he never left. It’s the kind of guy that a girl would love to settle down with, you know? 

Anyway, it all went by so fast. Confirmation from Louise (that’s his wife, I’m fairly sure I’ve told you about her before), excitement all around. 

For just a couple of moments, it actually seemed like something good could’ve come out of this war. No no, police action. I’ll get myself there, yet.

Of course, this damn place turns everything rotten in some way or another. Optimism, I’ve found it, is more of an enemy than the guys shooting at us. At least we always know what to expect from the North Koreans. 

That’s not to say it was all fun and dandy. There was a certain trip to a minefield that I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forget, and if the past two nights have been any indication, I’m sure the nightmares of Trap’s limbs landing on my table aren’t going away any time soon either.

But things were supposed to work out.

Trap and Kim were safe in the end, and everything was supposed to fucking work out. It all was. It actually seemed like it was going to, and I think that’s the worst fucking part about it all.

It’s crazy just how quickly something good can be taken away from you. For a lot of people out here it’s their lives, their brothers, their sons. In this unit specifically, it’d take both of my hands to list the number of daughters that fathers have had to leave behind.

You could snap your fingers and in a fraction of the time for the sound to reach your ears, you could lose everything. Korea keeps humbling us, dad.

And even though I know it could’ve ended so much worse, it still feels like a punch in the gut for Kim to not be on a plane to Trap’s family. Finding Kim’s mother was nothing short of a miracle. It’s a goddamn happy ending if there’s ever been one, and yet I still find myself, selfishly, thinking about the McIntyre’s having a third kiddo running around.

How could such a crummy place give us so much hope? More importantly, how come we keep falling for it? Sometimes I think that’s the most cruel part of it of all.

I’m sorry if I was ever a difficult kid to raise. I’ve always known I got lucky, even with the whole dead mom thing, but seeing the shit out here really makes me wish I could go back in time and slap myself and tell me to appreciate every last thing in Crabapple Cove. Especially you.

I love you. I don’t think I say it enough. I love you, dad.

Hawk

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[letters-from-the-4077]

3x11: Adam's Ribs

Dear Dad,

Remember that flu season back in ’32? When it felt like you were gone every night jumping to every single household with a kid in it because everyone all got sick all at once? And how it was after mom died but you decided that I was old enough to stay home alone, only for you to come back on that Tuesday to find me throwing up my guts all over the floor?

Good times. Terrible times, actually, but despite my pacifistic tendencies, I’d fucking kill to go through that again than the fresh hell that is my current hell. I nearly wrote you this letter from the latrines, which is terrible on multiple levels, especially considering I was actually looking forward to write to you this time.

I’ve said before that one of these days I’m finally going to snap, and even though I’m still in one piece, I’m not convinced that it’s an uncracked one. Eleven days. Eleven straight days of liver of fish, making our own damn never ending season of seafood up in Maine truly dwarf in size. Eleven straight days and I’m half convinced that each subsequent day was just the previous one’s leftovers! The fact that they’re serving us kidney at all blows my fucking mind, and over a week and a half of it for every meal has me half convinced that I’ve dreamt it all up.

They don’t tell you about how every grueling day feels like a dream, same motions, same food, same jokes, just different supporting actors underneath my scalpel. 

On the seventh day God rested, and on the eleventh day Hawkeye Pierce fucking cracked. Like I said, there’s only so many days where a man can eat liver of fish. Trap and I made this ridiculous plan—honestly, dad, I didn’t think about it working or not. I just needed something to break up the monotony. Anything. ANYTHING.

You know the place in Chicago I told you about however many years ago? The one that had the best barbequed ribs in the entire country? Couldn’t remember the name at first, but it’s Adam’s Ribs. 

Adam’s Goddamn Ribs.

A couple of pulled strings and a hell of a lot of favors somehow managed to bring us back to Chicago. Or I guess Chicago to us. It doesn’t matter- the only thing that mattered is that we somehow fucking managed to get Adam’s Ribs in the worst corner of all of Korea and Igor cooked them up and hell dad, they were the best damn things I think I’ve ever smelled in my life. 

Course, ambulances poured in the second I had my hands on them, but it made for a hell of an OR session. That’s how they should be teaching speed for MASH surgeons. Nevermind the live rounds and constant shelling, just put the idea of tantalizing, edible food on a stick right above a surgeon and you’d get the fastest cutters in the West. East.

But, oh father, I know what you’re thinking now: why the reminder of the great flu season of 1932 when so far the only thing your dear child has spoken about has been spare ribs from the great state of Illinois?

Here’s where the story gets good. And by good, I mean fucking terrible.

Great OR session, by the way. Took out enough shrapnel out of intestines to build a full new bomb, and not a single patient lost. Igor reheated the ribs for me and Trap and we had what could only be described as the greatest midnight snack in the history of the entire war. Or not just in the war, but in the history of the entire world. We headed back to our bunks more full than after a Thanksgiving spread, and not even Frank’s sniveling could change a thing.

That is before a solid and conscience five minutes had passed.

Five minutes. Five lousy minutes of euphoria that just nearly made me forget about the terrible place that I’d been forced into. And then I spent the next hour and a half, throwing up every single bit of edible food. Made the worst flu pale in comparison, I’ll tell you that much. Couldn’t even make it to the latrine the first time, and I think I scared the wits outta Trapper since it probably sounded like I was vomiting up my organs right outside his side of the tent. 

He’s a good man, Trap. Picked me up off the ground like you would’ve and helped me stumble to the latrines where I could continue throwing up every bit of goodness that I had managed to make for myself in this camp. Practically held my hair back like I was his girl, believe it or not. 

I’m writing this letter from post-op, you know. Trap’s got himself convinced that I managed to get food poisoning from the long trip that the ribs made in order to get from us. Not sure how he’s reached that conclusion given that he has exactly zero symptoms, but hell, I’m not volunteering any other explanations to him.

Between you and me, I think I’ve become a bit of a cuckoo, if you can read between the lines there. 

I mean, what sane person would practically stage a mutiny just to get food from a specific restaurant that he couldn’t even remember the name of in the first place? If Henry was just 2% more done with my shit, he could’ve gotten me in real trouble. Hell, if Henry was any other CO, I’d probably be on trial with a death sentence looming over my head for the shit I pulled just to get the first real food I’d have since stepping foot on that plane. 

All that just to throw it up a few minutes later. I may not have snapped quite yet, but I’m cracking, dad. 

I hope next flu season is kind to you up there.

Love, Hawkeye

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[letters-from-the-4077]

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A Dear Dad, inspired fic based off of the events of Sons and Bowlers (10x20) because. well. because the thoughts wouldn't leave my head and because I can.

Dear Dad,

Everyone’s favorite all-American man is absolutely fucking terrible at bowling. I don’t know why, but it’s been the only thing rolling around my head for days. Impressive, seeing as how BJ couldn’t roll the two bowling balls that Klinger somehow rounded up in Korea.

It’s the only thing that I heard when I was waiting for those damn operators to get me from Guam to the East coast. Could’ve sworn we were being shelled, but after exactly two battery acid martinis, BJ started reminiscing on the day’s tales. Probably didn’t help that he was already a dozen real drinks in after having the marines pay all night before we made it back to the Swamp, but who’s counting, right?

The point is, the guy sucks at bowling.

He’s the most Uncle Sam suburban man you’ve never met, but he can’t bowl. There’s a mark in the mess hall where he kept throwing the damn things down, and now whatever poor bench is in the middle always rocks and rattles even worse than before. 

Don’t lie like that to me again, dad.

Now now now, I know what you’re going to say, I can basically hear your guffaw and sincere words already, telling me that you were hardly lying, but a lie of omission counts too, you know. Don’t do that to me. I’m not 8 years old anymore.

Besides, I need to know these things! I’m a physician, dad. I’m your son and a physician, and if you combine those two and cross them over and carry the one and divide by five, you know what you get? Your physician. You wouldn’t lie to your doctor, would you?

You know, doctors make lousy patients. I’d know. 

I think I got that from you. It’s genetic, you know? Psychologically wired to help people and ignore help ourselves. Ha! Sidney’d have a fucking field day with this letter if he got a hold of it. Which, of course, knowing the Army’s penchant for snooping around private letters, if they find this concerning enough, he might actually get to it.

Assuming I’m not discharged with a section 8 first. You know Klinger isn’t even itching for one anymore? He’s put away all his evening bests, too. The holes in his ears are gonna close up soon if he doesn't put a few studs in here and there. If I didn't know any better, I’d say that he’s been shaping up for something else. Someone else. I’m sure you can read between the lines, dad. 

And if the Army is reading through this, for the love of God, give that man his Section Eight. He deserves it for tenacity alone.

I’m done talking about Klinger.

Don’t lie like that to me ever again, dad. Do you know what it felt like, seconds away from clawing my goddamn eyes out in the hopes that some operator wouldn’t get cut off or I wouldn’t be called to more meatball surgery or that you’d be well enough for me to yell at you for lying to me? 

You probably do. All the more shame then. Shame on you! Shame, shame shame! SHAME!

I think I’m going to be more meatball than person by the time these peace talks finally mean something. 

A meatball son who only knows how to perform meatball surgery.

You know, I don’t think I’d even be able to diagnose tonsillitis anymore, let alone fix it up.

Radar got tonsillitis, you know.

Good kid. Not a single meatball inside of him, and I’d know because I’ve had my damn hands inside of his thoracic cavity before.

I think we’re all going crazy in here, dad.

That’s something they don’t tell you on the draft letter. Everyone around you is going to go crazy and you might go first and everyone smells the same, like some conglomerate of army-issued nurses and drafted teenagers and stupid little surgeons who are nothing more than mechanics that help kill more drafted teenagers. And everyone talks like everyone else. Can’t have your own personality out here, not when you’re two-by-two with every breathing creature that comes by here.

Radar left his rabbits, you know.

Some days I think I’m going to sleep walk and package them up and send them right back to him.

I wonder if he still has that jeep at home. Did I tell you about that? A year and a half ago has never felt more like a lifetime. I have no idea what I tell you in these letters, dad. To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I say a second after it leaves my mouth and I have to guess based on the nurses’ reactions to decipher my own thoughts. Did I proposition one or ask for a clamp? Who knows.

Who knows anything in this damn camp.

Don’t lie to me like that again, dad.

You scared me.

Or maybe I should be grateful, because I thought it wasn’t humanly possible to get any more scared than I already am at every waking moment and hour and second and all other types of time that the US Army seems to have invented just to keep us in purgatory a little longer.

I asked Father if he thought this was purgatory or hell and you know what he said? That bastard said that it couldn’t possible be hell if we were all here together. And then left.

LEFT. To go to post-op, but still. Left. 

Left, left, left right left. 

I think I do better with Rabbis than Priests. Of course, mom did better with just one of them than we did total, but what would she know? She’s dead.

I think I’d better stop writing before the choppers come in and I’m forced to burn this letter and eat the evidence and forget about everything that I wrote you here. Would you believe me if I said I already forgot how I started this letter? I’m not looking either. That’s cheating.

I guess that’s not true, I always start my letters with the same two words, but after that? It’s curtains, dad. Curtains. Meatballs with guts splattered red all over the nice white drapes that mom sewed when I was five years old and determined to help even though everyone in that house knew I was only making this more difficult for her.

This morning Igor used last week’s bread and the watered down excuse they call syrup to make an Army Issued French Toast. It has more stars pinned to it than I do. 

It’ll be exciting to see what they’ll send me home as: french toast or meatballs. 

I hate that you’re good at making breakfast, you know that? Hate it.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m ending this letter here so I can guzzle some afternoon battery acid and prepare for the next round of spaghetti intestines that need to be sewed up again and covered with a bit more sauce to top it off.

I hate it.

Your son, Hawk