[marktwain]

When the movie came out, a friend of mine told me his father, who had been in a real MASH unit in Korea was furious about it. According to the father, the movie was completely divorced from reality, and made the serious business of treating the wounded look like a clown show.

[M1903A1]

Genuine POWs felt the same way about “Hogan’s Heroes”.

[Joe 6-pack]

I have a now deceased aunt who was a nurse in a MASH unit in Korea. She hated the show.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

My father served in Korea also as a Sergeant. He hated the series and refused to watch it after seeing one episode.

BTW, The 4077th was nowhere as big as the real 4 or 5 MASH units in Korea. According to the original book, they typically had about 200 beds for the wounded.

[dangus]

M*A*S*H was highly disrespectful of the military. Col. Potter was the first “regular military guy” who wasn’t written to be despised. In the TV show taken solely on its own merits, this is excusable because it’s written from the POV of characters who would do anything to leave the war. My father is a Korean-war veteran who sympathized with this perspective, even as an enlistee. But in the larger context of Walter Cronkite, Jane Fonda, John Kerry and the generally anti-American portrayal of the military in Hollywood, I could easily understand your father’s reaction.

[Celtic Conservative]

I had a late friend who served as a young butter bar Marine lieutenant in the Korean war. He visited some of his wounded troops at the 4077th MASH. Ironically, he portrayed Col. Henry Blake in our local theater groups production of MASH. I was Frank Burns.😁

CC