Plot A: A young medic, uninjured, suddenly cannot remember his name. Sidney Freedman is called in to discover the trauma that caused his amnesia.
Plot B: Charles discovers that his name has been withdrawn for consideration for a future medical position in Boston (Mass.). Angered, he vows not to speak to anyone again. Hawkeye and B.J. naturally take up the challenge.

The scene where Sidney has hypnotised the young medic, with Hawkeye and B.J. providing background noise, is one of the most harrowing of the entire series.

Question:
When the bus came in and Jerry couldn't remember who he was, who was driving the bus? If there was a driver, it would seem that he would have noticed that Jerry had done a bad job of first aid and seen if something was wrong. On the other hand, if Jerry were the driver, how would he know how to get people to MASH? Just wondering.

Well, it is possible, I suppose, that the driver was someone new to the job, who did not know what proper first aide was. He might not have noticed the difference. It might also be that he didn't see it as his resposibility to check the wounded. All he has to do is drive the bus to the nearest MASH unit whenever he's told it's ready to go. I don't think it's ever really been established that it is part of the driver's responsibilities to insure that the wounded have received proper battlefield treatment, has it?

Nice try, Benn. Those are about as good a guesses as any.

Well, I can't, off hand, think of an ep where we see that the bus drivers are trained in any form of medicine. I'm sure that drivers who have been doing it for awhile might have some idea of what looks like a good job patching up the wounded. For the most part, it seems like the drivers have one job - get the wounded to either a battalion aide station or a MASH unit. Of course, it also depends on how much help the driver is in loading his bus. If he helped load the wounded on the busses, he'd probably noticed that something wasn't quite right.

One other possibilty is that the driver thought that a soldier applied the dressings. Or someone very new to the job.

Or someone in a very major hurry had applied the banadges.

>> The scene where Sidney has hypnotised the young medic, with Hawkeye and B.J. providing background noise, is one of the most harrowing of the entire series. <<

Wouldn't be surprised, D.K. This is only the third ep I've seen and I was surprised (not unpleasantly) by the sudden change in tone.

One thing I'm slightly confused about, though: Winchester outranks Hawkeye and B.J., so couldn't he have them up on a charge for their antics?

Oy, you are new to this, Paul. Everyone gets away with anything on this show. In point of fact, watching a special about MASH, someone mentioned that the doctors could literally get away with anything short of murder, because there was such a desperate need for them.

Hope that you're enjoying the episodes.

In the series, at least during the first three seasons, the reason Hawkeye and Trapper could get by with so much was that, in the words of Henry Blake, "(they) outclassed every surgical talent in North Korea." They got by with it because they were superb surgeons. I suspect the same held true to some extent during Colonel Potter's tenure as C.O.

And like D.K., I hope you're enjoying watching the eps for the first time, Paul Joyce. Welcome!

Yeah! Feel free to yap about your viewing experiences all you want here, Paul - new perspectives on M*A*S*H always appreciated.

Re: the getting-away-with-it question...you evidently haven't seen the eps pitting our boys against Major Ferret-Face Burns yet, have you?

Thanks for your welcome, people. Yes, I am enjoying the episodes.

Charles got a letter informing him that he has lost his chance to become chief of thoracic surgery at Massachusett General Hospital. He said he got it that morning. Yet it's at night, while Klinger is cleaning up the camp grounds that Winchester tears up the letter. Talk about a delayed reaction.

And why is Max cleaning paper off the ground at night?

While I realize that Sidney's a psychiatrist and as such deals in medicine, isn't Potter saying he's going to have Radar put a call in for Major Freedman a bit premature? They do not, as of yet, know what the result of Nielson's head x-ray is. Potter could be getting the Major out to the 4077 for nothing.

And speaking of Sidney being a psychiatrist... The difference between a psychiatrist and psychologist is that the former will help his patients with medicine. The latter does not. Unless I'm mistaken, we never see Sidney use medicine to help his patients. Instead, he's always talking his patients through their problems. Does this mean that Major Freedman should really have been called a psychologist?

Hawkeye tells Radar he just got the October issue of Nudes Illustrated. Wouldn't Radar, as the person delivering the mail, already know Pierce has that magazine? (I suppose it's possible that Hawkeye just came back from R&R in Tokyo and bought it there...)

"All that good whiskey shot to hell."

Sidney is a psychiatrist--it's just been a long time since he's practiced medicine. A long ways back, when they were overloaded with wounded, Hawkeye more or less shanghaied Sidney into helping out with the patients. Sidney warned him, "It's been a long time since medical school. The last surgery I performed was a boil on my kid's tuckus."

(That, by the way, is just about the only indication that Sidney Freedman is married with a family.)

"Jocularity, jocularity!"

Yeah, I thought about that, ep. But there's a difference between performing surgery (which I seriously question that Sidney would have the skills and know-how to do) and dispensing medications, which is what a psychiatrist would do. I really think Major Freedman is actually a psychologist based on what we've seen of how he conducts his practice.

"All that good whiskey shot to hell."