M*A*S*H (television)/Headscratchers

• Where does Klinger get all those dresses, especially considering no one else seems to have many outfits beyond their fatigues?
  • It has been forever since I've watched the show, but wasn't it implied that he made at least a few of them himself? I imagine he bartered for or purchased the others outright. Everyone else seemed underdressed by comparison because Klinger was the only person who went out of his way to acquire that volume of clothing. The others either didn't care to dress differently or didn't want to put forth the effort. In one post-M*A*S*H interview, Jamie Farr talks about walking into Wardrobe and passing the other actors costumes. Ever actor had a rack apiece, which held their fatigues, bathrobes, and occasional Hawaiian shirt. He'd then arrive at his FIRST rack, which was full of dresses, frocks, skirts, togas.
  • He also received a few of them from a relative who tried the same stunt to get out of World War II. I don't think he succeeded, either.
  • It was also mentioned that he ordered from Sears catalogs and the like.
  • Which also brings up the question: Why didn't he try something else?
    • He did. Remember his stunt where he tried to convince everyone he was Zoltan, king of the gypsies?
    • And the invisible camel. Who DID get a section 8.
    • He also stayed atop a pole for a while, trying to convince everyone he was crazy that way.
    • He also forged a letter from a relative or two, saying they were sick, or his sister was pregnant, or something.
      • Blake had a folder full of forged letters that had all kinds of excuses, including mother dying, father dying and sister pregnant and other variations, like father dead, sister dying, mother pregnant.
      • "Here's an oldie but a goodie. Half the family dying, other half pregnant. Klinger, aren't you ashamed of yourself?" "Yes sir... I don't deserve to be in the army."
    • There was one time he tried to convince Colonel Potter he was a serial killer that exclusively killed women motorcycle cops so he could be sent home to be tried.
    • And the time he ate a Jeep.
    • And that time he wore winter clothes and insisted it was freezing during the middle of a heat wave. That one almost worked.
    • Or the time he claimed he was actually in Toledo. If he hadn't screwed it up at the last minute, it would've worked.
    • Or applied to West Point with the express intention of failing quickly.
    • He also built that glider, which he tried to fly out of the camp.
      • "A big red bird with fuzzy pink feet."
    • And the time he threatened to set himself on fire with gasoline, which didn't work out like he planned when someone replaced the contents of his cans with real gasoline.
    • He also feigned severe depression. That one would have worked, too, if he hadn't whooped with glee when told he was going home.
    • He tried to eat his way out, as it were, by gaining so much weight that he would be too fat for the army. All he did was give himself a stomach ache.
      • Basically, Klinger was too competent to be fired or sent to the front.
        • Hawkeye himself said that Klinger was a good medic who never allowed his attempts to get kicked out interfere with his duties in helping save people's lives.
          • Such as the time he was pretending to have fainting spells. His final one was in the OR, right after informing Colonel Potter that there were no more wounded to bring in. He also explicitly reminds Margaret about this fact when she thinks he's malingering, and he's actually got anemia from the antimalrial drug he's been given.
        • Although Klinger may have been a good medic and a scrounger that would have made Radar envious (through tactics that Radar probably wouldn't have employed), Klinger didn't get his discharge not because of his competence, but because he actually wasn't crazy, like he pretended to be. If he'd been a soldier during peace time and wasn't a draftee, he might have been discharged as "unfit for military service," but despite all his attempts, he didn't fool anyone. Klinger wasn't even that serious about wanting to get out. Sidney Freedman gave him the chance, but Klinger didn't want to be known as a transvestite, so he refused.
          • It wasn't the transvestite thing that bothered him (hell, he already was that) it was being labeled a homosexual that made him refuse.
          • After Radar left Klinger ran the camp just as well as he did, so they really couldn't function without him.
  • Speaking of Klinger, can anyone explain why the hell he was given a tent all to himself while captains and majors were sharing quarters in the Swamp?
    • Would you bunk with him if you didn't have to? The rest of the barracks probably complained until he got the boot.
      • Wait, Klinger is the best scrounger and one of the best wheeler-dealers in general for miles around and we're wondering how he got his own personal tent?
• Where did Hawkeye and Trapper get trained? Their lack of military professionalism is evident throughout the series, and sometimes it goes far beyond a simple defensive mechanism to cope with stitching up kids younger than themselves. And besides their brilliance in surgery, why didn't they ever get busted, or even a real reprimand? Henry couldn't have been THAT spineless.
  • It was (and still is) common for civilian professionals (lawyers, chaplains, nurses and doctors) to basically take the 90-day officers' course. Doctors start out as Captains, other professionals as 1st Lieutenants. This wasn't intended to make them proper military men, it was to get them used to military procedure and the system within which they were expected to work. Unsurprisingly, it didn't always take. In most cases (chaplains particularly) they are not expected to have any real command responsibility, which means the rest of the hierarchy can ignore them until needed.
    • This is still a common practice. In the US Navy Reserves, doctors can enter military service as high as an O-5, which is a commander (equal to a lieutenant colonel), and almost never appear in uniform. Their Navy officer training can take as little as two weeks. This troper has known Navy officers whose first (and sometimes only) time in uniform was to attend a two-week course. This troper has also known a full-bird Army colonel (a dentist) who knew absolutely nothing about military protocol to the point that I had to tell him, "They're talking to you, sir, and you should be angry at the tone they're taking..."
  • Apparently, drafted civilian doctors were automatically given officer ranks, so they were all but expected to be Bunny Ears Lawyers. And, yes, apparently Hawkeye and Trapper (and B.J. to a lesser extent) were so brilliant that they had Ultimate Job Security (whether they liked it or not).
    • Realistically, this makes sense. Having an officer rank would give them greater freedom to issue orders and travel, both of which would be essential when issuing treatment, especially on the front lines.
      • Rank doesn't really play a part when you're the subject matter expert in a particular area or the person responsible for something. A senior person can't give you a direct order to go against standing orders or good medical practice. A good example of this appears in Band of Brothers when a sentry shoots one of the officers and the medic (an NCO) gives the other officers a hard time for not following their training.
  • Part of it's due to their skills, true. Far more likely is that, at least in the show's world, replacing two or three surgeons would have been quite the chore, and probably led to a number of otherwise-preventable casualties in the meantime. One of the scenarios used in the book, film AND TV show was to have Hawkeye and Trapper getting righteously busted for something, then the alarm for incoming casualties would sound. The guys look at each other, shrug, and say something along the lines of "Well, we don't really plan on working if we're under arrest".
  • Plus the whole concept is based on what actually happened in the Korean War. Civilian doctors who were drafted in really did get away with all that kind of stuff.
    • That still doesn't explain how Hawkeye got away with punching Burns. Burns wasn't even doing anything out-of-the-ordinary for him, and Hawkeye just punches him right out of nowhere. Doctor or not, he should have at least been reprimanded for that.
      • He nearly was. Margret changed her story to match the one that Hawkeye and Trapper told-- that Burns got his black eye when he slipped on a bar of soap-- and so the charges were dismissed.
  • Henry was a civilian drafted as well remember and Potter was an old enough dog to know that as long as your cutters are good you ignore their foibles (which is why Klinger remained on staff rather then be transferred, Radar could keep that menagerie etc).
    • Henry was a Lt. Colonel and commander of the unit. He has to have been in the army far longer than Hawkeye and Trapper John to get promoted twice and and to that level of responsibility. That suggests that he must have been started out at least in WWII. If he were only drafted, he would have been able to quit in the late '40s and never had to go to Korea. Unless he were in the Army Reserve and thus liable to be re-inducted, which in turn suggests his commitment to the Army is (or at least was, at some point) more than it looks.
      • When Colonel Potter arrived, he was specifically described as being regular (career) army. However Henry was classified—drafted, reserves, whatever—he wasn't regular army.
        • Continuity was never the series' strong point, but I think Henry said at one point that he was in ROTC in college, partly because he thought it would look good on his transcripts or something. That may explain the rank bump over the other draftees.
  • Not necessarily, If Henry was in the reserves he might have only joined to pay for his medical schooling and then getting stuck when an actually war broke out. He was a half-decent administrator (plus he had Radar, who helped make him look good) and a damn good doctor, which is why he was promoted quickly when the 4077th needed a commander.
  • A better question would be how a bungler like Burns (who would have been a pastry chef if he wasn't drafted as a doctor) made Major.
    • Well, it was mostly for conflict, but in-universe, he mentions having taken ROTC in college. Unless I'm wrong about how ROTC, he could have been working in a VA hospital or something. Especially considering MASH's version of the army, he could have easily gotten promoted on zeal alone.
    • There's also the question of how the camp had such a high survival rate if one of the four doctors was so incompetent. If Burns was really as bad as they claimed he was while being one of the camp's few doctors, they could not have had a 97% success rate.
      • The show's Burns was heavily Flanderized from the novel's original. That Burns was a decent surgeon -- not a prodigy like Hawkeye, Duke and Trapper, but still respectable -- he just had an attitude that the others couldn't stand. Given the books' versions are Jerkass Heroes that the show toned down, another reason was needed for why Frank was objectionable. Even then, it's pretty likely that much of the accusations of incompetence are insults and Trash Talk rather than literal truth. (Though TV's Frank Burns was certainly capable of major malpractice at his worst.)
      • Also, Frank was almost certainly assigned the 25% easiest of the cases, and presumably he's capable of handling a basic stitching job without killing the patient. Just don't ask him to do anything complicated.

• Did the characters' attitudes have to be so anachronistic? I could stand them being a bit ahead of their time, but it's just so blatant, especially in the latter seasons, how everyone acts like the social movements of the 1960s have already happened. And the 1950s were twenty years before the show was made, so there's no way the cast and crew didn't live through the time period they were portraying.
  • Here's a justification for ya - the Korean War began 25th of June, 1950. Let's suppose in the M*A*S*H* Verse, the Korean War actually did go for the time period shown. The show went for 11 seasons. One episode took place over the course of a year, so we see 12 years pass by in M*A*S*H*, so the show ends in 1962. Presumably, a 12 year war would have some effect on the psyche of a nation, and even if it didn't we certainly see it affect the characters, as they gradually become dependent on the few forms of escape they have, and also the whole "Little contact with home" thing, meaning they perceive what they have as normal. I kinda lost my train of thought here, but I think you know what I mean.
    • I don't think that timeline works for the series. There was another episode that consumes a long timeline. I forget which episode it was, but Klinger convinces Potter to bet on baseball, beginning around the all-star break and ending around the time of the World Series. Even though these two episodes take up long spans of time, there are later episodes that give the date as being earlier than prior episodes. They also have a Christmas episode each season, but they don't keep incrementing the years up to the 1960s. The series is supposed to take place in the actual Korean War timeline despite the problems they have with having had 12 or 13 Christmases and things happening out of order.
    • That episode is "A War for All Seasons" and it is Winchester and Klinger who are betting on the Dodgers but the Giants Win the Pennant! This is also the episode that does the most to mess with the timeline - the episode begins New Year's Day 1951 and included Col. Potter as Father Time. Henry Blake was killed in August or Sept 1952 since Col. Potter reported for duty at the 4077 on September 19, 1952. Did Potter step back in time?
    • In Season 3's Life with Father, Hawkeye talks about a guy who "left here over two years ago." That would put that episode in at least mid-1952.
    • At the beginning of Season 4, when Trapper leaves, Hawkeye says he was room-mates with Trapper for over a year.
    • In a Season 4 episode, the PA announcer says Ralph Kiner has just hit his 47th homerun of the season. The only time that happened (during the Korean War) was in 1950.
  • The reason the attitudes seem so anachronistic is that the series, like the film, isn't really about the Korean war. It's about the Vietnam War. Neither the movie nor the series would have been green-lighted if they were explicitly about Vietnam. So yeah, this is a form of Getting Crap Past the Radar.

• This show made Korea look so backwards. I'm no expert on Korea, but I know South Korea is now one of the Four Asian Tigers. Was it really Amish-Land in the early '50s?
  • I'm told Koreans hate the show because of how the country was portrayed.
  • The series is supposed to take place around Uijongbu, which is an actual city. During the Korean War, Uijongbu was only a small village, so the portrayal may be justified.
    • The only place shown to be "backwards" (i.e. poor, farming communities) was the immediate area surrounding the 4077th and the Korean countryside. Seoul was never shown, but sounded like a large metropolitan city (because it is) and the place you want to go to when you go on leave if you can't get to Tokyo (which is the Las Vegas of the east).
    • At that time, most of Korea was pretty backwards. Up till about five years before the war started, Korea was a Japanese colony, and from what this troper has heard from people who were there, it was in pretty sad shape -- along with most of East Asia. The era of the "tigers" did not come until decades later.
    • Also, when Korea was divided into Soviet and American occupation zones (which fairly quickly became North Korea and South Korea) upon the Japanese surrender in 1945, the country's economy was seriously disrupted. In 1945, the north was primarily industrial (largely powered by hydroelectric power generated in the mountains) while the (generally less mountainous) south was primarily agricultural. As is normally the case, the agricultural area was more backward. South Korea didn't really become a developed economy for years.

• Were we really meant to feel sympathetic during Margaret Houlihan's whole 'lousy cup of coffee' rant? Each season she mistreated her nurses, went out of her way to make things difficult for others. At the very least her rant seemed like a very left field thing, at the very most it seemed like a very thin justification for basically stomping all over the people she was supposed to be responsible for.
  • She never really mistreated her nurses. Not in the way that Burns, for example, mistreated his subordinates. She was just very Rules and Regulations, and she resented the fact that she was vilified because of it. Moreover, Characterization Marches On: the Houlihan of later seasons is a very different person from the Houlihan of earlier seasons.
    • But until that episode there never was any indication that she would say yes if they offered as before then Houlihan was shown to be very conscious of rank and tried not to associate with the enlisted men if she didn't have to. The nurse's actions are largely justified as her character didn't start to really soften until after this episode.
    • And if you look at the early seasons she was willing to drop the hammer heavily on her nurses if they so much as sneezed. In one episode she said that unless Blake dropped the hammer she was going to go over his head, at which point he responded that she had gone over his head so many times that he had boot marks on his forehead. Not to mention that she pretty much ignored rules and regs when they applied to her and Frank's relationship. Her complaint that the nurses had treated her badly is like a schoolyard bully complaining that no one wants to play with them.
    • Again, Characterization Marches On. We can assume that her worst actions in the earlier seasons had been Ret Conned out of existence by that point.
      • Moreover, by this point in the series Houlihan had broken up with Frank and was engaged to Penobscot. That's as good a time as any to re-evaluate how people look at you.
    • I think that Frank and Margaret were mutually bad influences on each other. Frank's view of class and the proper order of things made Margaret distant with her nurses (and everyone else), while Margaret's army background and what she wanted in a man made Frank army-obsessed and somewhat violent. Once Margaret started seeing Donald, Frank became a lot less obsessed with army rules, and a lot more snarky and desperate for attention. When Margaret married Donald, Frank went round the bend, but didn't revert to his army obsession. After the marriage, Margaret was able to start to progress as a character, and became more willing to socialise and mingle with those "under" her. The episode in question was just part of that process of growth - indeed, once she married Donald, I think she'd have been open to the offer of a "lousy cup of coffee", if asked in the right context.
    • She did. In a later episode, she comes into the mess tent and says something like "aren't you going to ask me to sit with you?" Kellye: "We didn't think you'd accept." She smiles and says "That's gonna cost you a cup of coffee!"

• This troper always wondered why certain people had their own tents when others had to share. For example, Burns (later Winchester) had to share a tent with two to three other doctors (in the beginning, Spearchucker Jones was in the tent with Trapper, Hawkeye, and Burns). The dentist (in early episodes), Hot Lips, Sergeant Zale, a supply sergeant, Lieutenant Simmons, and Klinger all had their own tents. That's six people of lower rank than Major Burns who have their own tents. Blake, then Potter had his own tent, too, but that's understandable.
  • Some of that can be easily explained: Blake and Potter would have had their own tents as unit commanders, Hot Lips as the only female of rank (Can't bunk her with the men or with the enlisted nurses), Zale was a supply sergeant and could have bartered his way to privacy (there are several instances on the show of the supply personnel bartering to other goals) and Klinger spent most of his time trying to convince people he was crazy; I speak from experience in saying that being weird enough will win you a private college dorm, I imagine it's rather the same: no one WANTED to bunk with him.
    • The nurses aren't enlisted. They're officers. If Frank, the second-in-command, can share a tent with two or more doctors, why does Margaret get her own tent, or even worse, Lieutenant Simmons? As for not wanting to bunk with Klinger, it's the Army. If you don't want to bunk with someone, you don't always get the luxury of saying you won't do it.
    • After Klinger takes over as company clerk he also has to give up his tent and bunk in the office like Radar did.
      • Plus in the episode where they actually had a legitimate Section 8 Klinger was shown to bunk with him.
    • Burns, Pierce, and Trapper/BJ had to share since, as the surgical team, they had to be accesible at once for emergencies. Zale, as the motor sergeant, was also possibly the highest ranking NCO around, and would therefore get his own tent. Margaret, as the highest ranking female officer AND the Head Nurse, would be entitled to her own tent. Klinger might have been able to make a few deals to get his own tent from someone who was higher ranking than himself.
  • Those are all reasonable explanations for how someone could get his/her own tent and even if those are true, there don't seem to be enough tents in the camp to house all the personnel, especially with so many people having their own tents.
    • I think that perception is a result of the fact that you never really see the whole camp. An entire army camp of that size would be pretty massive, but they didn't have the budget or the technical skills to show something that big on a TV show. (Especially since their chance of getting cooperation from the actual military was pretty much zero.) Nowadays you'd probably see characters strolling along rows of tents while soldiers drilled in the background or something fairly often.

• Why is it that so many people that are known to the main characters happen to come to this MASH unit at various times? Hawkeye's childhood friend visits, so does a girl he went to college with, though this one makes a little sense as she was a nurse who was drafted, too. Also, a doctor Hawkeye did residency with comes to do a nose job on a soldier. Trapper's old friend also visits, and so does a writer friend. Potter's son-in-law visits and so does Margaret's dad (who was not as dead as he seemed to be in earlier episodes).
  • Margaret's dad could be justified by some sort because he was a soldier of high rank (which specific rank this troper can't recall) so he probably had enough clout to check out her MASH unit.
  • Which would also work in getting Potter's son-in-law into camp. Potter has clout and connections, furthermore the hospital is a relatively "safe" area for civilians as it's protected from direct attack due to the conventions of war. Also depending on the person's occupation (journalists, writers, filmmakers, newsmen, other medical professionals, or businesspersons with military connections) they might have an easier time being allowed to visit the camp.
    • Those are good explanations. You probably wouldn't even need to be that high in rank to get someone to be able to visit you in the war zone. I don't think I would actually call the unit all that safe, at least at times. Sometimes, they get artillery fire, snipers, kidnappings, guerrilla soldiers in the area, and North Korean and Chinese soldiers infiltrating the camp. And, although that's a good job of explaining how Hot Lips' father would be able to get there, it doesn't explain how he became alive after being dead. Assuming he was retconned to be alive again, I buy the explanation.
  • Margaret's dad was said to be dead in the beginning of the series, before they had all of the characters' backstories worked out. If you remember, Hawkeye had a living mother and a sister, and Radar smoked and drank. Certain facts changed as the series progressed.
    • Also, Radar had a brother early on.
    • And Hawkeye had a sister early on (she knitted him a huge sweater), and a living mom and a brother in a few episodes, then it was established that he was an only child and that his mother was dead.

• Is this troper the only one that is kinda discomforted by this little exchange (in the episode "Dear Ma") between Margaret, Radar, and a silent Potter?

Margaret: Make sure no one goes into my tent.
Radar: I wouldn't do that, Ma'am.
Margaret: SOMEBODY does.
Radar: Maybe it's rats.
Margaret: You think RATS have been trying on my undies?
Radar: Some of them rats are weird.

• • Margaret's accusatory tone, Radar's sheepish delivery of the last line, and Potter's eye-rolling distinct discomfort at the whole conversation seem to imply that it is Radar that has been trying on the undies. Could it be that Klinger is not the only crossdresser in camp? (Of course, it wouldn't be unthinkable, as many boys and young men at some point will try on some femme finery out of mere curiosity, without necessarily becoming a full-fledged transvestite. But this is our beloved Radar, and it seems just a little squicky...)
    • Radar had an on-and-off relationship with innocence. at times, he'd be seen smoking a cigar. Sometimes, Hawkeye would mention how Radar looked at his nudie magazines. There were times when he discussed how he had put the hole in the shower tent so he could peep. Then, there would be other times when he seemed to be shocked that a man and a woman could share the same bath with their clothes off.
  • This is probably not how it was intended, but the way I interpreted it originally was not that Radar was the one who'd done it, but that he knew who it was and didn't want to say.
  • I always saw it as Margaret knew that Radar was going through her underwear, but took it as a boy with a harmless crush on her, since a career Major in the medical field would likely be in her mid to late 30s, while an enlisted farmboy from Iowa was likely to only be about 20 at the most. She was taking the chance to rib him about it and let him knew that he wasn't as slick as he thought he was.

• Why is Hawkeye portrayed to be so sympathetic? He is basically a creep. I remember when he had to give Margaret a shot, and somehow lusting over her ass and humiliating her was okay. He is also condescending and cruel. He basically tortured a severely mentally ill man (Frank). Why didn't he make the completely reasonable recommendation that Frank was unstable and should be sent home, instead?
  • That always bugged me, too. If he liked you, he was very loyal to you. If he didn't like you, look out! There was also a time where he drugged Frank, bandaged him up, and hid him in the OR just so he could have a party.
  • 1) In that episode where he gave Margaret a shot, they ended up talking about respect and he said how fantastic she really was. 2) Remember a little episode called "The Novocaine Mutiny"? Because his command was challenged, Frank was willing to see him killed "or worse". 3) Oh, I don't know, getting steadily crazier until he was in a mental hospital at the start of the finale tends to make a guy sympathetic.
    • So talking about respect makes it okay to be totally unprofessional and lurid? Of course Frank was horrible in doing that, but does that excuse Hawkeye, magically of everything he has done to him in the past? Is Hawkeye somehow psychic and gets revenge on a future event? The guy was crazy, he SHOULDN'T have been there in the first place. Instead of adding to the stress of an unstable man he should have done everything he could to get him sent home. And in that episode as far as I can remember, Frank showed many signs of "not being all there in the head. I'm not saying Frank was nice or even a good person but since when does that excuse torturing someone? Should you only treat the people whose moral code corresponds with yours with respect(or simply respect enough not to physically assault them)?
    • I have to agree with this somewhat. The only reason Hawkeye said anything about respect was to fool Margaret into pulling her pants down. As soon as she gets her butt cheeks hanging out, Hawkeye says something like lurid and offensive. His moral code of professionalism only extended to those he liked. Frank was no saint. Hawkeye was a serious jerkass. Both of them were completely bonkers. In that episode, Frank tried to get Hawkeye convicted of mutiny, which has a death sentence as a possible outcome. Somehow, the can still work together afterward and continue to be room-mates.
  • Simple. At the start of the show, Hawkeye was an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist/Jerk with a Heart of Gold type of character. He always expressed the writers' anti-war viewpoint, but early episodes don't really try to portray him as a great human being. Then he started to turn into Alan Alda and act like he was some sort of moral paragon. But his skirt-chasing, martini-drinking, Frank-abusing shticks lingered (where else would the comedy come from?), so for much of the show he was essentially a self-righteous hypocrite. Not the writers' intent, of course, but you can see how it happened.
  • I'm not sure if he's meant to be a hero.
  • Could be a form of Fridge Brilliance, since the show was set in the 1950s, when even your more liberal types would have less enlightened attitudes towards women ("girls" well into their 30s) and the concept of sexual harassment barely existed.

• Radar, as we all know, is so-named because of his ability to anticipate the needs, words, and actions of his C/O Lt. Col. Henry Blake. Once Col. Potter took over the operation, Radar was able to anticipate him just as easily, and also to anticipate Hawkeye on the rare occasions that Hawkeye found himself in command. So why is it that Radar was entirely unable to anticipate Frank Burns when he was in command?
  • Burns was not fit to command, he was also making his own rules on the spot, unlike Potter and Henry who talked it over with someone before making a decision, Radar was able to predict what they wanted by conversation and paperwork. Burns was making giant changes that Radar wouldn't dream someone would do.
  • Maybe Radar's apparent psychic ability doesn't work on someone with Frank's mental instability or relative lack of intelligence (he might be normal or slightly higher in intelligence, but that's pretty low for a doctor. One wonders about a medical school that would graduate Frank).
  • Except he could:

Radar: (handing him a file) Fitness reports.
Frank: Not the fitness reports. You can't anticipate what I'm thinking. I'm not Henry Blake.
Radar: Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir.
Frank: I want...
Radar: (handing him another file) The efficiency reports.
Frank: ...the efficiency reports.

• It bugs me how motive-driven the characters can be to drive the plot along in several of the episodes.
  • Also, how the characters will go out of character to drive the plot along, like the episode where Burns has a sudden spark of bravery long enough to attack a Korean General because he thinks the general is Chinese. This goes against Frank's cowardice, but serves the purpose of making him look stupid.
    • Frank is more than willing to be "brave"... when he thinks the "enemy" won't be able to fight back and Frank's got heaps of people around him to help. In Frank's mind, the "North Korean" person is unarmed and surrounded by Americans, which gives Frank the perfect chance to be the "Hero", because he isn't putting himself in any sort of risk.
    • In early episodes, Frank cared about people, even joining the others in trying to help when a little Korean boy was found running through a minefield.

• Knowing that both the movie and the television program were allegories about America in Vietnam, why didn't the writers even bother to TRY being somewhat historically accurate in its portrayal? The racial, gender, and sexual values presented in the show weren't even commonplace when the show aired in the 1970's, much less 20+ years earlier.
  • The writers/cast probably thought their views were more widely held than they actually were.
  • When you watch the show now, it doesn't look like a period piece for the setting in the 1950s. It looks like it's taking place in the 1970s.

• Why doesn't anyone call Hawkeye or Trapper out on their bullshit? A few examples:
  • There are times when Trapper and Hawkeye start something with Frank, but no one seems to notice these things. In the episode, L.I.P., Frank is finishing up with a patient. Trapper comes over to him and tells him his stitching is good, then asks him if he practices on baseball mitts. Later in the episode, they treat Frank like crap to try to get him to sign some papers reporting a friendly-fire incident. Frank refuses. Sure, Frank is the bad guy, but they could have treated him better to begin with.
  • In another episode, Hawkeye wants to surrender. Margaret already pointed out that if they surrender, the nurses would have their bodies violated over and over again. Hawkeye tries to surrender anyway, even though Henry said he couldn't. When it doesn't work out, nobody says anything to Hawkeye, not even Frank and Margaret, both of whom want to get rid of him. This would be a legitimate chance. He disobeyed orders and tried to surrender when he still had the means to resist. This would be a court-martial offense, one that would likely land him in prison, yet no one says anything.
    • As a hospital, the doctors weren't able to resist. Medical officers are not permitted to fire or even carry weapons. Normally, the hospital would have had the real soldiers armed and hunting for the sniper.
    • In addition, one lone sniper is physically incapable of capturing the camp even if nobody offers armed resistance because there's only one of him and a whole camp full of people. Hawkeye's proposal basically boils down to trying to declare a truce so they can recover their wounded -- which is sound military practice given the circumstances.
  • Another time, Hawkeye drugs Frank and puts him in a bed in Post-Op so he can have a party.
  • Another time, when Frank is passed out, Hawkeye puts a toe tag on him and ships him off like he's dead.
    • To be fair, Frank was so drunk that he passed out in the back of a truck, accidentally shipping himself off like he's dead. Hawkeye and Trapper were only responsible for the toe tag part. They had no idea he would leave.
  • In Crisis, for no reason, Hawkeye and Trapper attack Frank and steal his heated socks. This is during a supply shortage and everyone is cold, but for some reason, it's bad for Frank to have his own heated socks? This is played as if it's okay because it's Frank.
  • In For Want of a Boot, Hawkeye takes Frank's birthday card from Frank's wife and puts it on the bottom of his boot to cover the hole in it. Then, he shows Frank that he's done it.
  • In George, Hawkeye and Trapper blackmail Frank into tearing up a report where he was outing a homosexual soldier (common treatment for homosexuals in the military until the 1990s). To blackmail Frank, they threaten to tell Frank's wife about Margaret. At the same time, Trapper is a womanizing cheat himself. Unlike Frank, Trapper sleeps with several women.
    • I can see the point in some of the above (and would add that Trapper and Hawkeye should have been on assault charges that time they forcibly took a pint of blood from Frank and gave him anaemia) but he got what he deserved in George; that Trapper's an adulterer too makes no difference to the hypocrisy of Frank trying to ruin someone's life over a moral code he doesn't live up to himself.
      • At that time, homosexuality was considered far, far worse than heterosexual adultery. You could be thrown into prison for it in many states.

• It bugs me that cheating is bad for some, but okay for others. Burns is portrayed as being immoral because he's cheating on his wife with Margaret. Potter's son-in-law visits and it's known that he's had an affair while he was in Korea and that's bad. When BJ thinks about having an affair, that's bad. When Donald cheats on Margaret, that's bad. Henry and Trapper have affairs and it's fine. And then there's Henry contemplating an affair, and when he decides not to, it's shown as a good thing.
  • I would hypothesise that the different levels of morality portrayed with characters' infidelity reflects their different levels of conscience; at least, about adultery.

• It bugs me how the good characters must be opposed to the war. Even Colonel Potter starts to act this way. By Season 7, he's even allowing Hawkeye to openly sabotage the war:
  • In one episode, he steals a Jeep, drives to Panmunjom, berates the peace delegates, then drives back to the camp. Potter not only lets this slide, but approves of the stunt. When a major comes to confront Hawkeye about his actions, the major tells him the general said to stay at least 20 miles away from Panmunjom, but he relays the message that if the general could get away with it, he'd do the same thing.
    • In Real Life, anybody at all who tried that on would have been lucky to spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth.
      • Isn't this around the same time Hawkeye has his nervous breakdown and ends up having to go into therapy with Sidney? They probably decided to not press charges once it was clear he was in shell shock.
  • In the episode where Hawkeye wins a Howitzer in a poker game. Potter tells him he has to move it out of the camp. Hawkeye says it's his and he's going to find something to do with it. After Potter tells Hawkeye he's found an artillery unit that will take it, Potter lets Hawkeye do what he wants with it (sabotage it), which still doesn't get it out of the camp. And this is portrayed as being okay and the right thing to do.
    • Kind of supports the communist sympathiser theory. The howitzer can no longer be used to kill communist soldiers, yet still puts American lives at risk by being in a non-combat unit.
  • In Five O'Clock Charlie, Hawkeye sabotages Frank's attempts to shoot down an enemy plane bombing their camp, replaces Frank's gun with various items which could potentially get him killed, and decides to destroy a nearby munitions dump, using rather vital supplies, large amounts of bedsheets and antibiotics, in the process, with little regard to what that lost ammunition would mean to US troops in the sector.
    • The visiting general mentions that the munitions dump is barely legal under international law, and that it was put there to keep the ammo safe from being attacked, since the hospital is a non-target. Since it was getting the hospital attacked (legitimately, since the ammo dump stripped the hospital of its non-combatant status), Hawkeye took steps to protect the patients. Also, Charlie wasn't an enemy plane; he was a civilian vigilante who was targeting only the munitions, but kept hitting the camp instead.
      • None of that really makes it any better. It especially makes Hawkeye look like a Hypocrite since he repeatedly flies off the handle at allied pilots whose bombs are less precise than he'd like. Apparently Hawkeye only considers collateral damage a sin when it's white people dropping the bombs. Also, as was noted above in the example about keeping a nonfunctioning Howitzer around points out, Hawkeye's dedication to not making the camp a target is questionable at best.

• Why doesn't Klinger just shoot himself in the foot?
  • Because self-inflicted wounds of that sort would get him out of the Army -- and straight into Leavenworth, where he does not want to go.
  • He also says several times that he considers a Section Eight an "honorable" way of getting out of the army and doesn't want to go by other methods. Which is contradicted by various other attempts he's made, but continuity was never the series' strong point.