Yesterday while watching a MASH marathon, I was struck by this line by Frank Burns in “The Trial of Henry Blake” "I am proud to serve in the United States Army and equally proud to fight in this war.
My family came to America in 1927." It’s not clear how old Frank is during MASH - but he’s gone to medical school, become a surgeon, gotten married, had 3 children, and established a medical practice (which at one point he says he’s had for 12 years), so he’s got to be pushing 40 - which means he was born around 1910, well before his family supposedly came to America. Is he an immigrant (from Canada?)?
(I know, most likely, it’s that the writers forgot they were writing about the 1950s, which happened a lot).
I’m thinking of more subtle things, like Hawkeye mentioning being a kid during WWII. Alan Alda was a kid during WWII, but Hawkeye must have been in college or medical school during the war.
According to another episode, Hawkeye was apparently a WWII veteran. Somebody mentioned “the war” and Hawkeye said “Which war? I’ve been in two of them.”
Of course, this off-handed remark could have been referring to the way the series was supposedly set during the Korean War but often seemed to be based more on the Vietnam War.
Hawkeye being a WWII veteran makes more sense than him being a kid during the war certainly. Many of the doctor characters should have been kids during WWI.
Ever notice how the nurses loved being sexually harassed back then. Imagine dropping a shower wall exposing a nude nurse today. Very military.
That’s believable, right?
I have a feeling he does not. Another way of making the same observation would be saying that the film seems somewhat dated by modern standards, like a lot of films of that era. What do you think the point of the film is?
I was thinking about the dates of MASH myself a couple day ago. The episode with Opie as a 4 year old who lied to get into the war. I started doing the math that, if you say that was during '53 and he was 14 then he had to have been born in 39, which makes even him pushing 80. That made me sad, thinking of how few of those people would still be alive it had been a documentary.
He has no point. Altman was battling the military culture of the Vietnam war. He was battling pendants like Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan. He was also pointing out her sexual hypocracy. She was pissed about Trappers party but was sexual with Frank. Of course, the shower scene will offend modern eyes.
It’s possible that when Hawkeye said he was a “kid” during WWII, he was taking a little poetic license. It’s not uncommon to refer to 18 and 19 year olds fighting a war as “kids”. So Hawkeye, from the perspective of his mid-twenties in Korea, might look back on himself in WWII and regard himself as a kid back then.
For what it’s worth, Richard Hornberger (the author of MASH who based Hawkeye Pierce on himself) was born in 1924 and would have been 26 years old when the Korean War began in 1950. Hawkeye Pierce was described as 28 in the book. Donald Sutherland was 35 when he played Hawkeye Pierce in the 1970 movie. Alan Alda was 36 when the television series debuted (and 47 in its final season).
