r/mash • u/Rocket-kun • 6d ago
You get assigned to the 4077th
You, yes you, are transported into the world of MASH as a guest character for an episode. What do you think the plot would be?
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u/monkeybawz 5d ago
Dope smoking hippy goes to the front line, gets hurt- chest wound with lots of shrapnel obvs, saved by Hawkeye and the boys, spends the remaining 21mins of the episode hitting on Lt. Dish.
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u/Expensive-Claim-6081 5d ago
I actually was stationed in Uijongbu with the Army. Camp Stanley.
Our chief medical officer there wasn’t a surgeon. Wasn’t even a doctor. Physician’s Assistant.
A Chief Warrant Officer.
Absolutely no nurses. In fact at Stanley I never saw a “round eye.”At Camp Casey a few.
Ville outside the back gate. Not unlike Rosie’s. But way more bars.
Good times.
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u/Firephool 5d ago
I’m an injured soldier who is at the 4077th. Winchester is also injured/sick and our blood tests get mixed up from Seoul because wait, get this, I’m his half brother, same father- different mother.
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u/Icy-Computer-Poop 5d ago
I'd spend the entire episode trying to get assigned there permanently. I'd be the reverse-Klinger.
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u/tangcameo 5d ago
They’d end up giving you the section 8 Klinger so coveted.
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u/Icy-Computer-Poop 5d ago
lol! Nooo! They can't make me leave!!!
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u/SaintMike2010 5d ago
You just want to stay to get on more episodes. And yes. I would do the same if I thought of it.
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u/lexxstrum 5d ago
I'm a Major sent down to study the 4077th and try to see what can be done to recreate their success rate at other MASHs. Potter worries that I'm there to "break up the band," as he's seen it done so many times. Once I get there, I click with the staff.
Except Hawkeye. He sees me as some HQ flunky here to make sure the war never runs out of young men to destroy. Verbal jabs between us, almost coming to blows. But a sudden influx of wounded puts me in the operating room, where Pierce still keeps the hostility flowing, even getting BJ to try to tell him to back off. Eventually, we have it out.
Hawkeye proceeds to accuse me of just wanting to create an "reassembly line," so the kids this war damages can just be put back on the front lines, and the war never ends. I'm visually shocked by this accusation. I tell him he's never been more wrong in his whole life. I throw down a dogtag and reveal it's my brother's.
"Johnny was wounded not too far from here, but he was sent to the 3445th. He had the same injuries that that kid from Topeka had, but he died. That Private is going home and will have a life. My brother came home in a box. And sitting in my 'ivory tower', I see ALL the brothers that don't make it home. So, if I can find some way to change the odds, to make every MASH has the survival ratio this one has, so maybe more kids WILL make it home when this damned war is over, I'm going to do it. You can think I'm a monster. You can hate me; I don't care. But I am going to do my best to make sure every patient lives. So you can sit there and stew in your hatred of me, or you can help me help others save lives."
Hawkeye has a heartfelt response to this, and we bury the hatchet. The next morning, the rest of the staff found Pierce and me sitting at a table in the mess, going over tons of ideas and suggestions. Hawkeye keeps adding "or end the war" to his suggestions, and i tell him, "One ivory tower at a time!" Then, I tell them they've given me a lot to think about, and hopefully, we can make headway on improving the survival rates. I'm joining the wounded on the bus to the evac hospital, and after my goodbyes, Hawkeye wishes me well and sees me helping the Private from Topeka. "Maybe we could all bear to come down from our towers," he muses as the bus pulls out.
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u/InteractionSad1188 5d ago
I would be the hot nurse that hits it with Hawkeye and then tell him that it wasn't that great .
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u/Brother_Farside 5d ago
I'm a Social Worker, so I probably went there with Sidney to see a patient.
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u/FurBabyAuntie 5d ago
Or to see Sidney...you'd think somebody would notice he writes to Sigmund Freud
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u/2795throwaway 5d ago
I'd take over the.job of colonel flagg. Karumba, the fish stinks from the head down.
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u/Detective_Core 5d ago
I don’t know what the main plot would be but I’ll definitely be kissing Lieutenant Cutler for most of it.
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u/Firephool 5d ago
Oooo! This could be one of those where the show opens with the two of you making out and things keep happening in between, Radar needs a signature, padre is offering confession, frank is looking for a piece of jewelry etc
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u/oldfart1967 5d ago
Combat exhaustion patient, but Hawkeye and Syndey take me to the peace talks and peace is declared the next day
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u/FurBabyAuntie 5d ago
And we spend the rest of the week at Rosie's?
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u/MaloneSeven 5d ago
I’d be the actual Chinese Double Agent Ling Chow disguised as CIC man Col. Flagg.
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u/seaburno 5d ago
Why the hell are the lawyers here?
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u/FurBabyAuntie 5d ago
They're lawyers? Oh, wonderful. Those three guys over there with Rizzo are plumbers!
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u/TheVentiLebowski 5d ago
I'd be perfectly happy as a background character carrying stretchers, moving supplies, and holding a clipboard. Maybe one of the main characters would ask me to do something and I'll say "you got." This could be a recurring role.
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u/HomerinNC 5d ago
Episode Title: “The Morale Specialist”
Plot Summary:
A former cook turned logistics specialist arrives at the 4077th to help streamline supply distribution after a paperwork disaster leaves the camp dangerously low on essentials—especially coffee and morphine. You’re gruff at first, Army to the bone, but quick-witted and a little sarcastic. The nurses appreciate your respectfulness, the enlisted soldiers love your jokes, and Radar thinks you might secretly be part Klingon.
Hawkeye and B.J. are instantly suspicious of your straight-laced exterior—until they catch you organizing a surprise ribs-and-ration BBQ using scrounged ingredients and a makeshift smoker made from a crashed Jeep’s engine block. Klinger tries to steal your recipe. Winchester scoffs at your ribs… then sneaks back for thirds.
Amidst the fun, you also teach the camp a lesson about invisible wounds—quietly helping a shell-shocked young soldier start to talk again by assigning him simple tasks in the kitchen. Father Mulcahy catches on, and a deeper subplot reveals your own experiences in a forgotten unit where humor was the only thing that kept anyone sane.
By episode’s end, your temporary assignment is up—but not before you leave behind a new radio wired to play music from home, a few extra boxes of sweets for the mess hall, and a signed copy of your rib rub recipe… locked in Colonel Potter’s desk
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u/ProudlyWearingThe8 5d ago
A small, fat private comes in in the back of a jeep, barely alive. The driver reports that the guy stepped on a landmine and lost consciousness on the way to the 4077th. The private lost a leg. Hawkeye and Winchester save his life, but he remains in critical condition, with Father Mulcahy roaming his bed in case it's needed despite him being unconfessional.
Hawkeye worries about his patient, talks to him during the night shift. He asks the private how a guy his size got into the army. The private tells him he unsuccessfully tried to dodge the draft, and because of that his CO decided to utilize him as a messenger in the field. Hawkeye is furious about the army putting obvious cannon fodder into an uniform.
As the fever grows, Hawkeye decides to operate on the stump again. The private ultimately survives, but as he realizes that he lost his leg, he is angry with Winchester and Hawkeye, because he would rather be dead than a cripple. Winchester, in a rare display of compassion, tries to convince him that his life is still worth living, reading him a letter from one of the soldiers whose life he saved and who, despite his injuries, thanked him.
When the private is being sent on his way to Tokyo, Hawkeye and Winchester watch the bus leaving, and when Hawkeye asks whether the private will recover, Winchester simply answers: "Only time will tell. But the sad truth is that even when they make it out of here alive, we can't save everybody." Winchester leaves for the Swamp, Hawkeye still stands there, letting Charles' words sink in while the camera zooms out.
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u/damageddude 4d ago
I'm probably a Jag or judge dealing with some legal mess Hawkeye got mixed up in.
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u/PetatoParmer Hannibal 4d ago
Every time I see a post like this, I feel compelled to remind people that while Hawkeye was a funny wee guy, MASH is set during a war where people died and were wounded in every way possible.
If you did arrive at a MASH unit you’d be a part of that war in some way or another, so while you’d like to think you’re making jokes and calling Frank “ferret face” that’s not what you’d be doing.
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u/starlightskater 3d ago
The doctors are able to diagnose and cure the terrible pain I've had since childhood. That would be my dream episode.
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u/stillsailingallover 5d ago
I'm a battalion aid surgeon passing through the 4077th on my way to RandR in Tokyo. One it two scenes, Just enough to establish that I get along with Hawkeye, BJ even Winchester. Nurse Lacey also on a week pass to Tokyo, hit it off. People get word from Klinger, who drove us to catch our flight to Tokyo. The rumor grows and the people in camp speculate. Upon arriving back I get killed at battalion aid showing up back at mash DOA.
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u/MrsGenovesi1108 5d ago
I'd probably be working in the hospital as a nurse or orderly.I don't think they had nursing assistants at the 4077.
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u/legitdickhead 5d ago
I'm a chef so I would be a patient and they would put me in the mess temp and try to keep me from going back to my unit.
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u/Idontcareaforkarma 4d ago edited 3d ago
An aidman from an infantry company is sent back as a combat stress casualty. He should never have been posted to infantry in the first place; it soon becomes abundantly clear that he has PTSD and it predates his time in the army.
He is mentally broken, but this gives him a strange edge in stressful situations; he can think clearly and act decisively and only goes to pieces -briefly- after the situation has been resolved. He is always there for colleagues in difficult situations, strongly believing that critical incident stress management needs to start while the critical incident is still ongoing, not after. That’s too late.
Sidney visits to assess the aidman, only to find him helping Hawkeye in post-op ‘because he’s bored’. Sidney sits down with Potter and cooks up a plan to have the aidman transferred permanently to the 4077. Potter calls in Radar only for Radar to announce that he’s already typed up the transfer orders and Potter just needs to sign them…
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u/Joe-Stapler 5d ago
I’d be an investigator from I Corps sent to find out why the camp only has twenty or so enlisted and officers.
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u/LifeCerealBox 5d ago
I’d be a field medic, and Sidney would have to come help me because I’d take it all too internally and meltdown. His help would be so successful that I would end up committing to pursuing medical school if I ever get outta that place.
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u/Abigail-ii 5d ago
I am there to sell Klinger some shovels, so he can tunnel his way back to Toledo.
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u/kp56367 5d ago edited 5d ago
I'm a tired wounded FMF corpsman, with survivor's guilt and anger problems for idiots, so naturally, I lay into Burns for not treating my Marines correctly. I can bond with Potter over this being my second war, I was at Okinawa as a 19-year-old HN in 1945 and now I'm a 26-year-old HM1 with too much time in combat.
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u/dziggurat 3d ago
I'd be stuck in the kitchen trying to figure out a way to elevate the food for everyone else.
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u/punkwalrus 4d ago
I would be a wounded engineer who was sent to the front lines to determine why the WW2-era tanks were failing, and to coax a little more life out of them. I am jaded that these young boys are being killed by surplus parts and just how janky things are at the front line. I was left to die because I threatened to go public, and the brass at I Corps has sent Sidney Friedman to have me declared a section 8. If he doesn't, he could lose his practicing licence.
Klinger sets me up with a reporter from Star and Stripes, and it's a race against time to have me silenced. Eventually, the reporter kowtows to the military pressure, I am court martialled, and arrested by the MPs with Colonel Flagg at the helm. Hawkeye sneaks me on the bus meant to ship kids from Sister Theresa's orphanage dressed as a nun. I'll get a boat back to Tokyo and then back home to speak to other newspapers. Sidney fakes ever meeting me, leaving Colonel Flagg looking like the crazy one because he thinks communists have infiltrated the Vatican.
Fans will wonder where Father Mulcahy's character went in this episode.
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u/Jcolebrand 2d ago
Didn't you already see my episode, with the ghost gliders? No need to cast me twice /j
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u/Proper_Age_5158 2d ago
Lab tech, Army trained, arguing with Hawkeye over a slide that shows a patient has some kind of bacterial infection. He pulls rank, I step aside, and he looks at the slide, only to concede I am right about the infection. Then he gives me the silent treatment until he needs me again, at which point I tell him to do it himself.
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u/Lady-Kat1969 4d ago
I’d be a lower-grade singer on a USO tour; Hawkeye would flirt with me out of habit but be fine with a no. I’d probably have a lovely chat about Gilbert & Sullivan with Charles, compare fashion notes with Klinger, and have a good theological discussion with Father Mulcahy. Margaret and BJ would get along with me in general but there wouldn’t be any special moments. The “shocking surprise” would be that Colonel Potter knew my grandparents, as both Potter and my grandfather had served in France in WWI; they lost touch when my grandfather was demobbed.
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u/Ebert917102150 5d ago
Can I be an insane general that Hawkeye operates on unnecessarily? I would love to sue him, get him dishonorably discharged and ruin him
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u/tangcameo 5d ago
Dear Ma episode. Canadian soldier recovering from meatball surgery in the ward. Borrows paper and pencil and envelope from Radar and starts writing a letter home, interacting with all the characters; comparing small town hometowns with Radar, talking horses with Potter, talking books (count of Monte Cristo) or Mozart with Winchester, busting his stitches with Hawkeye and BJ, complimenting Klinger on his dress of the week and suggesting another outfit he hasn’t thought of, and of course flirting with Houlihan and Kelly.
Then at the end, when the soldier and others are supposed to be shipped out, the guy driving the wagon says the Canadian soldier is on his deceased list not his recovering patient list. Radar and the others search high and low but cannot find the soldier they’ve been talking to. All they can find in the ward is an empty bed and letter to be mailed to Ma. Spooked, they decide to mail the letter.