Plot: The child of a Korean woman and a GI is left at the swamp. When Father Mulcahy points out that half-caste children are treated very cruelly in Korea, the doctors try to find another home for her. They discover along the way that the United States is the only country that refuses to acknowlege the illegitimate children of the military.

Did anybody notice just how hard Potter is rocking the baby in that scene? He keeps getting told to slow down, but even when he does, he'd still be in real danger of injuring her had a real baby been in there.

I know this entire episode was designed to get a point across, and I don't really mind that, but the final scene with Hawkeye pontificating in the O.R. is a bit much. They don't even disguise it in dialogue, and Hawkeye does everything but look directly into the camera while he's saying his bit.

We have a new book in our library that indicates that the problem continued during the Vietnam War.

I think that American attitudes about sex can be really strange. I watched a series about sex on the History channel, and it was a real eye-opener. During WWI, the military seemed to have the idea that all their boys overseas would be celibate during their tours of duty. An epidemic of VD proved them wrong about that. During WWII, they seemed to be more aware of the problem, but their attitudes still seemed unrealistic. They showed part of a training film that seemed to indicate that any time a soldier or sailer would have sex with someone, he would promptly trot off to the nearest special military clinic (can't remember the exact term) to be "taken care of." (I'm not sure exactly how. A wash, a shot, what?) They still had serious problems with VD, however. And, of course, with illegitimate babies. The military seemed unwilling to openly admit that "our boys" would ever do such things, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

One thing I will never understand about this episode is why Hawkeye or Charles or Klinger or somebody single didn't just say that he was the father. I mean, they would have had no choice but to allow the father of the baby to adopt her and send her home. It's not like they had DNA testing back then. All the had was blood testing, and without the mother's blood sample, nothing would be proved conclusively. Would have been fairly simple just to lie.

Remember the early episode where Radar was accused of being a father? At the end, they ship the girl and her baby off, along with the Korean family who was trying to farm in the middle of the 4077th. Captain Pak said to Radar, "She'll be O.K, she's got a family again." No mention of the possibility of her little boy being emasculated in the future.

Another episode had Radar caring for Mulligan's woman and child. Again, no mention of the dangers the child faced.

If it was so impossible to give to the States a child which had been willingly left in the care of the doctors, why then was it deemed to be no problem for Trapper to have adopted Kim in season 2, who was simply a patient whose family could not be found? Before Sister Teresa and Kim's real mother came by, Trapper was all set to send the boy to his wife, while here, the adoptions process was so full of hoops to jump through that it could just as well not have existed at all.

Klinger brings a surgical glove filled with milk to feed the baby. As big as that glove is, isn't that a bit too much milk to feed the child? It looks like there's more in the glove than there would be in a baby bottle.

And where did Max get so much milk to begin with? Surely, it's not all canned milk, is it?

Hawkeye refers to the milk glove as "Chateau Moo '51". Uh, he's not trying to say this ep takes place in '51, is he? Since Colonel Potter took command of the 4077^th in September of 1952, that's a bit of a problem. Unless Pierce means the milk's that old.

Charles mentions something about the "sentries and their seeing-eye dogs." Do I take this to mean that the MPs for the camp have watchdogs? How come we've never seen the mutts before? The only dogs we've seen in camp prior to this have been strays.

The set where Potter and Hawkeye examine the baby looks to be a redress of Klinger's office with a different back wall added.

I think either the entire examination scene or just the part where Klinger holds the baby and is soon ordered by Margaret to surrender her is cut for syndication.

I'm pretty sure that the scene with B.J. and Hawkeye at the Red Cross center has been cut for syndication.

After the Red Cross, Hunnicutt and Pierce go to talk to an Army rep. The major they talk to, Major Spector, outright tells them that even if they adopt the baby, there's no way they'll get her out of Korea. So how was Trapper going to get Kim to the United States? Is it because Kim was a full-blood Korean that McIntyre would not have any problem?

I'm surprised the baby didn't start crying when Potter started rocking the cradle too hard.

This is the third episode in a row where there's been a lull in the fighting. If it would have kept up much longer, I'm sure peace could've been declared.

In the scene with Mr. Prescott at the U.S. Consulate, Pierce yells at Prescott. Charles chides Hawkeye, saying, "Pierce, I'm handling this. Remember?" In the next shot it looks like Charles is taking his hand off Pierce. However, in the previous shot, Winchester's hand is nowhere near Captain Pierce.

Okay, so assuming the MASHers could have gotten the baby stateside, just where were they planning on sending her? It doesn't seem to me they thought the whole thing through too well. At any rate, there's no mention of what plans they had for the child.

The Army major, Major Ted Spector, was played by Howard Platt, probably most famous the role of the cop, Hoppy, on Sanford and Son.

"I'm so conservative, I make you look like a New Dealer."

When taking the baby to the monastery, Hawkeye, Charles and BJ all go with her, leaving Potter as the only doctor at the 4077. It's a good thing the fighting didn't choose that moment to flare up, or Potter would have been up to his neck in wounded with no one to help him.