Frank really was the most cartoonish character on the show. Just there to be a boob who deserved the treatment he would receive while being acceptable for the prime time audience of the time. When the show was on it was quite a bit different than the typical TV programming of the time in many ways, but Frank Burns was a traditional one dimensional sitcom character.
As for unearned medals, it was a feature of the movie Wedding Crashers, and it happened enough in real life to get the Stolen Valor Act passed, though later struck down. I don’t know if it was an issue during the Korean War or earlier, and I don’t know how much of it was real and how much legend. I suppose for guys trying to win over a girl or just get laid it wouldn’t feel dishonorable enough to stop them. I think that plot line in a modern TV show would get more blowback. It wasn’t just giving someone a medal as a gag, it was doing it within the military and presented as a fair and just ending of the story.
I was just pointing out that if you want a medal (or even rank insignia, for that matter), you can just purchase it in the uniform store at any military base or post. In my whole time in service, I was never required to prove I was entitled to wear any particular medal or ribbon when purchasing it. It’s basically an honor system (though your fellow service members would pick up on this fairly quickly).
“So, how did you get that Legion of Merit, soldier?”
In a wartime environment, especially at a MASH unit, a Purple Heart would be much more commonly awarded, of course.
Shouldn’t pretty much everyone there on any and every day get one? Or does the injury have to be somethng specific? (I have no medals, I don’t know. My dad never got wounded, so I never had cause to ask.)
The criteria for the award is being wounded (or killed) while in combat against an enemy of the U.S. or due to enemy action. See here for more details:
Appendicitis (for example) doesn’t meet the criteria for award.
My guess is that two things prevented it from being an issue before the 2000s. First, a LOT of men had been in the military. It seemed as a kid that every man above a certain age had served- either in WWII, Korea or Vietnam, or as a peacetime draftee. So a lot less people to try and fake it.
Second, since they were all mostly draftees, there wasn’t much in the way of lionization accorded to them either, even if they happened to volunteer. It was something they did/had to do in their early 20s, and then got out and moved on with their lives.
Sometime in the 1970s, the military went to an all-volunteer force which significantly shrank the size of the military. There were no significant wars until the 1991 Gulf War however, so there wasn’t really any valor to be stolen. While there was a lengthy buildup and a lot of troops/sailors involved, there wasn’t too much fighting in the 1991 Gulf War really. But the troops were given much acclaim and adoration when they returned. So when Afghanistan and Iraq came around, you had a situation where there were very few military people relative to the population at large, and they got a lot of positive treatment. So it’s not surprising that some losers would pretend to be one of them to get some of that positive treatment.
My Dad was in WW2, then, men tried NOT to get a Purple heart for minor wounds. See, if they could bandage it up, and give you antibiotics at a aid station or in the field, all was fine- but then- no Purple heart. But if you had to be sent back to a hospital, you were usually " repple deppled" and wouldnt get back to your unit. Sure, if you did have a nasty wound, the medal was a nice thing.
The Doctors could have much more easily faked a wound on the kids record.
It had to be a wound, in battle. Not a wound from a car accident or a bar fight or being sick or etc. More men got sick (Dysentery and VD were common) than got a wound in battle. So, a lot of patients in the MASH unit wouldnt qualify.
Wasn’t it established quite early in the novel that Burns was actually a good, even better than competent, surgeon at some aspects of the field? It was his character traits that got in the way.
Larry Linville, the actor who played Frank, spoke of this and was himself frustrated that their was a never an episode where Frank did anything right or redeemed himself. He also said this was part of him leaving as they had taken the character as far as possible. I mean you can only beat up on a character for so long and you need a new protagonist…
But Linville also recognized it was the nature of the character and that there was nowhere else for it to go. In part of an interview included in the 30th Anniversary special, he said that when people asked him why Burns wasn’t nicer or more competent, his reply was “Who do you want him to be – Hawkeye Pierce?”
There is actually a first season episode where Hawkeye complains that Burns asked for help three times. So for that episode, that was not true.
Now that is first season, there were more things still carried over from the movie. Hawkeye is more of an asshole in general in that episode, closer to Hawkeye/Trapper in the movie, where they aren’t particularly nice people.
But the job was a fast track job. Blake mentions it in one episode, that however much he hated being there, as a doctor, he got to see a lot of things he’d never see in civilian practice. Meaning that he got into the profession for personal interest, like anyone, and on a technical level, being in the MASH provided more opportunity to make a difference than civilian practice, with more routine cases and time for consultation.
Otto Appel was a MASH surgeon who was a consultant for the series, and also wrote a book about his real life time in Korea. There were definitely surgeons who came in and weren’t up to standard, and got moved out as a result. I suppose they were fine for a less demanding position. But there’s certainly a scenario where an inadequate or marginal surgeon in that environment is going to be criticized by his fellow surgeons. Even if he asks for help.
Frankly, that would happen on a regular job anyway. If someone is at your pay grade, gets paid the same as you, if they are constantly asking you for help, not just something that only you know, but basic job level help, you’re not going to like it.
In the 1950s, when the show was set, even psychiatrists conflated these 2 “conditions.” That was still common, altho less so, in the 1970s, when the show was filmed.
Klinger was “bucking for a Section 8,” a medical discharge on psychiatric grounds. In the earlier seasons he always wore women’s clothing but did not “mince” stereotypically, and was presented as 100% heterosexual.
He didn’t get the Section 8 discharge and they sort of indicated he liked wearing women’s clothes, although maybe only out of habit. By the end of the series I remember him mainly in regular uniform.
Did anyone watch the After MASH show? How was Klinger presented in that show?
