[Crickets Chirping]
[Glasses Clinking]
Hey! What the hell is goin' on? I'm tryin' to sleep here.
Ooh, ooh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Well, now that you're up, care for a drink?
At 3:30 in the morning, all I care for is a sleep.
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go to sleep...
there's one thing I gotta tell ya.
There are times when I really envy you...
with your happy marriage and your wonderful wife waiting for you back home.
But this isn't one of them.
Boy, you can take it from me...
Millie Carpenter is quite a woman.
Congratulations.
You're the number one lover boy in the whole fraternity. Good night.
Oh, yeah. Good night. Good night.
You know, it's amazing how much pleasure two people can give each other...
and on a Wednesday night.
- Major! - Ah! What is it, Klinger?
I got something very exciting to talk to you about.
- Once-in-a-lifetime kind of stuff. - Your lifetime or mine?
Sir, I've been giving some thought to the fact...
that this war can't last forever.
- Well, it's certainly been trying its best. - Have you given any thought...
to what you're gonna do after it's over?
Well, Klinger, if for some reason I choose not to reenlist...
I thought I might try my hand at being a surgeon.
That's a nice business. But did it ever occur to you...
that the bottom could fall out of medicine?
You're right, Klinger. An epidemic of health could break out.
Now, if you'll excuse me, this is the kind of conversation I like to avoid.
- What kind? - The kind where you're talking and I'm listening.
I got a business proposition. For one low, initial investment...
you get 50%% of the company and your name on the door right below mine.
Oh, that's tempting, Klinger, but I think not.
Come on, Major. Who else can I turn to?
Well, what about your enterprising Bedouin relatives back in Toledo?
My Uncle Amir would jump at this in a second.
But he's been on his butt ever since his door-to-door pita bread business went belly-up.
Klinger, don't you have places to go, people to bother?
All I ask is that you meet me behind the generator shed...
at 2:00 a.m. For the big unveiling.
It's not a date. Now, if you will excuse me...
I have some being alone to attend to.
- You're a cautious businessman. I like that in a partner. - [Stammers]
One sure test of good oatmeal is that you can't fill your fountain pen with it.
What the oatmeal lacks in solidity, the coffee more than makes up for.
When you haven't had much sleep, there's nothing like a good cup of coffee...
you can really sink your teeth into.
People, could I have your attention for a moment, please? I've got some news.
Oh, I hope we're not going home. I still have some things at the laundry.
I'm afraid it's not very happy news.
One of our nurses...
Lieutenant Millicent Carpenter, has been killed.
- [Gasping, Murmuring] - Oh, Lieutenant Carpenter!
- My God, how did it happen? - Her body was found this morning.
The best I can figure is she took a long walk last night...
somehow wandered off the road and...
stepped on a mine.
[All Gasping, Murmuring]
Padre, can you handle the, uh, memorial service?
Of course.
Time and day will be put on the bulletin board.
Uh, if you'd like...
I'll serve as summary court officer and arrange for her disposition.
Yeah, that's what I had in mind.
Perhaps someone would like to deliver a eulogy at the service.
Oh, that's a real nice idea, Padre.
Is there anybody here who was especially close to Lieutenant Carpenter...
and, uh, would like to say a few words in her memory at the service?
I'll take care of it, Colonel.
- Father. - Hello, Hawkeye.
You looking for somebody?
I thought maybe you could use a hand.
No, I think I can handle it.
Lord knows it's not the first time.
Unfortunately, I'm all too experienced at this.
Where do you send all this stuff?
I don't know yet.
Her 201 file is stuck in the backlog at H.Q.
I was hoping to find something here that would give me a clue as to her next of kin.
Well, there must be a letter or something.
Yes, well, that's what I thought.
But I haven't found anything yet.
Yeah.
Hawkeye, something on your mind?
Father, I'd like to do the eulogy.
Hi.
Everything okay?
I told Father Mulcahy that I would do the eulogy.
- I had to do it. - Yeah?
When I saw that nobody else volunteered, I realized that...
Father Mulcahy would just do one of those routine services...
where all you do is just fill in the blanks.
Hey, give him a little more credit than that.
Well, I'm not knocking Mulcahy, but what can he say?
That she was a nice person who died before her time...
and now she's gone on to a better world.
I'll tell ya, Hawk...
at a time like that, I don't think it's the words.
What's important is we're all going to be together to listen to them.
No, it's got to be more than that. It's gotta say something about Millie.
Sounds like she meant more to you than I thought.
No, that's just it. She didn't.
We just jumped into the sack together.
If she were alive now...
and being transferred out of here...
I'd say good-bye to her and toss off a couple of wisecracks and, uh...
and probably forget about her in a few days.
But now I feel like I owe her something.
Major, what a coincidence running into you here.
- Good night. - Well, I guess I have to drink this cognac all by myself.
- Cognac? Where'd you get that? - Black market.
Tax write-off. Entertaining prospective partners.
- Fat chance. - Surely this fine stuff is worth five minutes of your time.
Three minutes.
Here we are.
Well, so far, I'm impressed.
Not to mention thirsty.
All set.
- There you are, Major. - Thank you.
Now can we get on with this? I have some meaningless, trivial business...
- that is far more important. - Okay.
I didn't wanna take any chances, so I hid our little product in a clever place.
This... is it.
My word! You have invented the circle.
Better! Watch what you can do with it. Hoo San!
[Chuckles] More investors.
Please, Major, it's already past this guy's bedtime.
Well, it's past this guy's bedtime too.
So, y-you gonna show me what you dragged me over here for or not?
This is it! In Seoul, I saw kids...
having a ball doing this with old barrel hoops.
I stole their idea and ran with it.
Only, I used tubing from the motor pool.
- Keep going, Hoo San. - Klinger, before you were born...
the word "stupidity" was without a definition.
You actually expect people to pay you...
for something they could make themselves...
out of any unsuspecting length of garden hose?
Look, I came, I saw...
I drank, I go to bed.
Before you go, can I just ask you one question?
- What? - When do I get the money?
[Scoffs]
- Margaret, can I talk to you for a minute? - Sure.
This is just routine.
I wanted to ask you about Lieutenant Carpenter.
Like what?
Well, anything you can tell me about her. I-I'm...
- I'm delivering her eulogy. - Oh, are you?
Well, she was a good nurse.
Had a background in thoracic surgery.
[Exhales] Boy, I still can't believe it.
- Yeah, I know. - How come you're doing it?
Well, I had... I had seen her a couple of times...
and I, uh... I wanted to help Father Mulcahy out.
So can you tell me a little bit about her?
Well, she was a good nurse.
- Yeah, I know. You said that. - Yeah.
Uh, well, she wasn't here all that long.
You know how it is. Sometimes somebody new comes in...
and it takes you a long time to even get to know them.
Besides, she was sort of quiet. Kept to herself a lot.
Did she ever say anything about anybody back home?
Not to me.
Of course, I only saw her at work.
I'm sure the other nurses must have known her better.
I don't even know where she was from.
- Someplace in Virginia. - See? You know her better than I do.
I don't know what we can tell you, Captain. She wasn't here all that long.
Well, I know she came from Virginia.
- You know what town? - I thought it was Kentucky.
No, no. It was Virginia.
She usually volunteered for the night shifts, so I hardly ever talked to her.
I tried to talk to her, but she wasn't easy to get to know.
It's hard to say this about her now that she's gone...
but I got the feeling she wasn't all that friendly.
- What do you mean, not friendly? - Well, what does it matter now?
It matters, believe me. Anything you can tell me about her would mean a lot to me.
Well, there was the fudge.
She got a box from home. It was really delicious.
- Yeah, what we had of it. - I don't think I understand. What do you mean?
Well, seems kind of petty to talk about it now, but it was a big box.
She only gave us one piece.
Oh, I think I can understand how she was.
I've been in the service a long time.
You travel around so much, you don't wanna make friends...
'cause you don't know how long you're gonna have 'em.
Yeah, I know, but you lived with her. You must have talked about something.
Well, mostly she liked to talk about work.
She was very serious about her nursing.
She seemed really anxious to pick up on the routine around here...
and she was a fast learner.
That's all you have to tell me? I gotta know more than that. Anything.
Well, Captain, you went out with her. You must know something.
She was a good nurse.
You wanted to see me, Colonel?
Yes, I'm making up the duty roster for next month.
- You mind working a week of nights? - Not at all.
- Matter of fact, I'd be grateful for the solitude. - Consider it done.
Thank you, sir.
Colonel, what, may I ask, is that?
You like it? [Chuckles]
To form an opinion either way would be to imply that I cared.
You don't know what this is? Don't you read the comics?
No, they're just a blur on the way to the financial page.
Well, this is the latest denizen of Dogpatch.
What, I ask reluctantly, is a dog patch?
Major, for a man with a Harvard education...
you sure don't have much knowledge of what's important.
Dogpatch is where the Yokums live.
Oh, well, that explains that.
The best damn cartoon strip in the whole world is Li'I Abner.
That is roughly comparable to being the finest ballerina in all of Galveston.
This friendly little creature is a Shmoo.
- A... A who? - A Shmoo.
The biggest thing to hit the States since Studebaker put the front end on the back.
[Chuckles] What does a Shmoo do?
Well, not much of anything.
Well, then what makes this imbecilic toy the rage?
Who knows? I guess with the world goin' crazy...
folks leaving the cities for those prefab suburbs...
cars without clutches, green toothpaste...
everything's getting so technical...
people need to have something dumb and simple like this.
Besides, after a hard day at the army...
- I like to give him a punch. - [Chuckles]
Go ahead. You know you wanna do it.
- Oh, no... - Go ahead.
It'll be our little secret.
- Give him a punch. - You mean, hit him?
This, uh, symbolizes the way of life that we're over here fighting to preserve.
- Got a better one? - It is... simple.
They're selling like hotcakes.
Mildred's been all over Missouri lookin' for one of these for my grandson.
When I spotted this chubby little fellow at the P.X. At Kimpo, I grabbed him.
Boy, I wish I had a nickel for every one of these sold.
Hmm. I guess I tend to underestimate...
the stupidity of the American consumer.
I happen to like it. That'll be all, Major.
Sergeant, I have something to tell you.
- What? - Upon reflection, it occurs to me...
that with that little, uh, contraption of yours... you know...
you may just have captured the essence of stupidity.
- Oh. - That special genius you have.
- I have? - We're gonna make millions.
Of course we are. I got the brains, and you got the bucks.
And if we go broke, what's the worst that can happen?
- I lose a mere $600. - Seven hundred.
All right, seven. A tidy little tax write-off.
- Now you're thinkin' big. - You come right along with me, Sergeant, over to my tent.
- I'll write you a check. - Major, you've made me a happy man.
Long one of my goals, Max.
- [Crickets Chirping] - [Knocking]
- Come in. - You got a minute, Father?
Of course.
[Sighs]
I'm having a real problem with this eulogy.
Yes, summing up a person's life in a few words is... is always difficult.
I wish I had a few words.
Seems like nobody around here really knew Millie Carpenter.
So I think maybe it'd be best if I give the job back to a pro.
Well, if you insist, I'll do it...
but... but first...
I wasn't sure whether I should show you this...
but now I think I'd better.
It's Millie Carpenter's diary.
It was found under her mattress.
Well, a diary is, uh... It's kind of a private, personal thing.
As summary court officer, I was obliged to read it.
Now I think you should also...
as a final gesture to Millie.
[Millie's Voice] I'm not sure that I love him...
but there's something special about him.
He's kind and gentle...
and his playfulness and warmth make me forget how lonely I really am.
Maybe someday I'll be able to get up the courage to tell Hawkeye how I feel.
I thought you might like to know...
the average temperature of the patients in post-op is 99.2.
- Great. - What're you reading?
Rereading. Millie Carpenter's diary.
Oh?
I finally found out something about her.
She's more than a good nurse.
She was head nurse of the thoracic surgery unit at Letterman.
- They do good work there. - Yeah. Then she...
thought she could do even more good at the front, so she asked for a transfer to a MASH unit.
And stepped on a land mine.
She talks about that in here too.
She doesn't know she's talking about it. She says, uh...
"Even though it's 3:00 a.m., I know there's no point in trying to sleep now.
"There's just too much Hawkeye running through my mind.
I think I'll take a walk."
End of diary.
I meant something to her, and I had no idea.
She never let on. Well, I was so busy being casual about things...
- she never had a chance. - Hawk, you only went out with her twice.
Yeah. It would have been the same after six months.
I have this subtle way of getting the message across.
"Let's just have a good time. And keep it light.
Otherwise it's 'bye-bye, Hawkeye."'
Sometimes I'm a real prince.
Welcome to the royal family. There's a little of that in all of us.
I don't know. I think maybe I've cornered the market.
Hawk, she wasn't completely honest about how she felt.
- You can't blame yourself entirely. - Oh, yes, I can.
She couldn't tell me, 'cause I wouldn't let her. I never gave her the chance.
I never do. I'm like a boxer in the ring.
I'm dancing around all the time, making sure nothing lands on me, touches me.
And you know something? My legs are getting tired.
[Grunts, Exhales]
[Laughs] Well, I'll be damned.
[Strains, Mutters]
[Laughing]
Ladies.
You ready, operator?
Okay, the wire goes to Mr. Amir Abdullah.
It's spelled just like it sounds.
1329 South 15th Street, Toledo, Ohio.
"Dear Uncle Amir:
"Who needs pita bread? We're in business.
Have check in hand."
Change that to, "Have check in trash."
- Major, have you lost your mind? - Nope. Changed it.
- Why? - I've done a little market research.
Prospective consumers find your product patently silly and remarkably stupid.
Of course it's stupid. You told me that's what you loved about it.
Love affair's over.
[All] My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Amen.
Millie Carpenter was 27 when she died.
Not many of us knew her very well...
and that's our loss, because...
she was really somebody worth knowing.
I'm sorry to say that I didn't really know her myself...
very well until last night when Father Mulcahy...
suggested that l... I read her diary.
I got to know Millie Carpenter in those pages.
Let me tell you about her.
I'll start with the fudge.
It was a big box, but Millie only gave one piece to each nurse.
That was typical.
She didn't seem to share much with anybody.
Well, I know now that Millie gave the rest of that fudge...
to the wounded in post-op.
She was working on the night shift, so n-no one was around to see it. L-
I guess none of us really saw Millie.
We thought she was kind of distant and unfriendly.
Well, in... in fact...
she looked upon us with a kind of awe that...
that we've done our jobs for so long and so well.
She could have told us that...
but she wasn't able to...
because...
It wasn't, as some of us thought, that she was... uncaring...
but it was because, as Millie wrote so often...
she was shy... she was just too shy...
to express her... her deepest feelings.
She could write them to herself, but she couldn't say it to us.
I... I wish she had, because...
if she had, l... I might have felt for her before...
what I feel for her now.
I really care for Millie.
And I've learned something from her.
See, I'm a lot like Millie.
I'm not shy. I... I...
I cover up my feelings with jokes...
and I don't tell the people l... I care about the most...
the most important thing that I can tell them...
that l... that I do care.
It's too late for Millie to change.
That's- That's sad, but-
but maybe... maybe we can take a page from her diary...
and I'd like to start right now...
and let a little of what I feel show through the cracks...
through the... the wisecracks.
To all the people here...
who I've sweated with and endured with...
you're very important to me.
And I hope I do a better job of letting you know it.
And to those closest to me, who... who mean so much to me...
Colonel Potter...
Father Mulcahy...
Klinger...
Margaret...
Charles...
and Beej...
I love every one of you.
And good-bye, Millie.
Okay, just 500. We'll sell 'em by mail order.
For the last time, Klinger, the answer is no!
Keep throwing, Hoo San. Major, can't you see what a great idea this is?
It can't be a great idea if you had it.
Now, if a great idea ever does present itself...
you'll be the last to know about it.
And I will be the first to exploit it!
Will you urchins...
take your mindless recreation elsewhere?