Mash by Richard Hooker

was mentioned, it was generally agreed that he was the most amiable, and therefore likeable, of the three. Trapper John’s consummate skill as a surgeon earned him the most respect, but when it came to Hawkeye Pierce there was a great divergence of opinion.
    The man who hated Hawkeye the most was Captain Frank Burns. He had good reason. He was persecuted by Hawkeye Pierce. Captain Burns was the boss of one surgical shift, and Hawkeye of the other. Working times frequently overlapped, so some contact was inevitable. The more contact they had, the more they hated each other.
    Frank Burns was the son of a general practitioner and surgeon in a medium-sized Indiana town. After one year of internship, and as heir apparent, he had joined his father in practice for three years before being drafted. He owned a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house and two automobiles.
    Hawkeye Pierce had spent the same three years in a surgical residency, without salary, and had been supported by his wife and hospital poker games. In Hawkeye’s opinion, Frank Burns, despite a definite technical competency, seldom thought and was a fake. In Frank Burns’s opinion, Hawkeye Pierce was an uncouth yokel who failed to understand that learning surgery from a father who didn’t know any was better than formal training in a teaching hospital.
    Captain Burns, born to affluence, accustomed to authority, was very definitely the boss of his shift. He found the enlisted men exasperating. At least once a week, it was necessary for him to report someone to Colonel Blake for dereliction of duty. It then became necessary for Captain Pierce to intercede in behalf of the enlisted man, which he always did successfully. This annoyed Captain Burns, and one day he approached Captain Pierce and attempted to discuss the subject.
    “Frank,” Hawkeye said, “you stink. I haven’t decided what to do about you, but sooner or later I’ll come to some sort of decision. Now I suggest that you go to bed and lull yourself to sleep counting your annuities or something, before you precipitate my decision, to the sorrow of us both.”
    Frank ran to Colonel Blake and complained. Colonel Blake came to The Swamp.
    “Pierce,” he asked, “what ails you?”
    “Well,”, said Hawkeye, “the guy from the Sox who looked me over once said that, in addition to having a very weak throwing arm, I’d never hit big-league pitching.”
    “Jesus,” said Henry, “you are crazy. Anyhow, you leave Burns alone. I know what you mean about him, but surgeons of any kind are hard to find. Leave him alone, or it’s gonna be your ass.”
    “Yes, my leader,” agreed Hawkeye meekly, as Henry stormed out.
    That night when Hawkeye went to work he encountered Frank.
    “Hey, Frank,” he said, “one of my kid brothers just got out of jail. I wrote him and told him to go out to Indiana and burn down your thirty-five-thousand-dollar house.”
    Again, Frank ran to Colonel Blake who visited Hawkeye in the morning.
    “Pierce, have you flipped?” he demanded.
    “Whadda ya mean?” asked Hawkeye, who had forgotten all about it.
    “I heard what you said to Frank last night about your brother burning his house down.”
    “Which brother? I got six.”
    “The one who just got out of jail.”
    “Well, for Chrissake, Henry, I can’t keep track of things from here. It could be any of them. They all sort of rotate in and out. Forget it. None of them could find Indiana on the best day he ever had.”
    When Hawkeye, for the moment and to placate Colonel Blake, let up on Captain Burns, it was Duke Forrest who took over, again in behalf of the enlisted men. This time it was in behalf of Private Lorenzo Boone, the dunce of the Double Natural.
    In his nineteen years, Private Boone had been exposed to very little, so his real abilities were difficult to assess. He couldn’t seem to do anything right, which may have been why the Army assigned him to a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, where he was given the job of