Plot: A young soldier with a self-inflicted wound refuses to consult with Father Mulcahy, because Father Mulcahy cannot understand his situation. Mulcahy elects to go with Radar to pick up a wounded soldier in order to get some experience. On the way back, the patient stops breathing, and a tracheostomy must be performed.
The young soldier's, Danny Fitzsimmons', story about the Chinese's sneakers and leaving his foxhole only to find his buddies dead is familiar. Earlier in the series, Radar heard about the Chinese from another soldier. Later in the series, another soldier would stop eating because he left his foxhole for more food, only to return to find his buddies dead.
I love Klinger's reactions to Hawkeye's tracheotomy instructions to Father Mulcahy. Farr has him looking really nauseated.
The last tag to this episode is missing. That it concerned Corporal Cupcake is all I remember.
One of you medical people out there--how come sometimes this operation is referred to as a tracheotomy, and sometimes as a tracheoStomy?
You know, I've wondered about that too, and when I read your question, I looked it up in my second Bible (aka my Tabers Medical Dictionary), which said that a tracheostomy was the same thing as a tracheotomy. Search me, I don't know why it's like that.
Thank you for taking the time, Lilith.
*grin* You're welcome!!
The final scene had Corporal Cupcake and his handler leaving by jeep. Burns came up and reached to pet him, calling him "pooch". Cupcake snarled at him, and I think Burns made a comment about ingrates.
BTW, does anyone else think that it's funny that the older Mulcahy didn't known the origin of "Boom Boom" Gallagher's nickname, but the young soldier did?
Wouldn't you think that a dog that deliberately tripped a land mine would be far more badly injured, if not killed outright?
It is an ugly fact that, after the Vietnam War, the war dogs were abandoned in Vietnam to a feral existance and starvation (not to mention the probability of being eaten by the locals). Does anyone know if that happened to the Korean war dogs?
Okay. So if Frank's such an expert on foot wounds, why is it that he can't tell the difference between an exit wound and an entrance wound? The bottom of Fitzsimon's foot should clearly have an exit wound. Yet, Frank somehow accepts Hawkeye's and B.J.'s story about Danny kicking a bullet despite the fact that he should be looking at a very obviously self-inflicted wound. He is suspicious enough to ask Radar if Fordham has a football team, but he shouldn't have to do that. Just looking at the wound should tell him it's self-inflicted.
The looping of Alan Alda's voice during the chopper pad scene doesn't quite sound right. The tone gives away the fact that it was looped.
It's interesting that Frank doesn't see Corporal Cupcake immediately when he enters the O.R. You'd think that the surgeons would be in the habit of looking at what's going in the Operating Room when they walk in. I suppose it's possible that Cupcake's buddy/handler, Sgt. Hodkey, was blocking Frank's view.
Why did Hawkeye take the call about the wounded soldier at the Aid Station? Shouldn't Potter have been the one? I mean, yeah, Potter was talking to Father Mulcahy at the time, but the conversation with the Padre wasn't so important that the call from Battalion Aid couldn't interrupt it.
Strange that Potter doesn't ask Radar why the 4077th has to send a jeep to the Aid Station. I'm sure he trusts Radar, but I think most people's response would be to ask why the Battalion Aid couldn't send the wounded to the hospital in an ambulance.
Frank has a chain of pet mortuaries (see "Margaret's Engagement") but he objects to operating on animals? Kinda weird. (Guess he doesn't like animals much.)
When Hawkeye tells the Father he can imagine how it felt to operate on a wounded soldier with all the shelling, Mulcahy tells him, "You had to be there." Um, well, while it wasn't Hawk's first time to ever operate, he has performed surgery at the front in "Aid Station". I'd say that Pierce has a pretty good idea what the Padre went through.
As a possible nit, this isn't really important. Might not really be a nit. But when Father Mulcahy sees Danny to talk to him again, Fitzsimons comments on how everyone's talking about the Padre cutting into a man's throat. Wouldn't that patient be there in Post-Op with the rest of them? Why didn't Danny say something about Mulcahy cutting into "that guy's throat" or "his throat", pointing to the patient?
"Mule fritters!"