There was a hospital tent in a distant war,
stitched from canvas, laughter, and pain,
and though it stood in Korea,
it appeared each week in our living rooms
like the home of old friends.
We knew that catchy theme tune.
We knew the signpost at the crossroads.
We knew the choppers in the sky.
We knew the bugle at day’s end
and the surgeons washing blood
from hands that could not wash away war.
And we knew them ....
not as characters,
not as actors reading lines,
but as companions
who visited faithfully through the years.
Hawkeye, sharpening wit
against the madness of men.
B.J., carrying kindness
like a lantern through darkness.
Colonel Potter .... proof
that authority and decency
need not be strangers.
Margaret “Hotlips” Houlihan, discovering
beneath discipline a heart larger than duty.
Radar, hearing tomorrow arrive
before anyone else.
Father Mulcahy, tending wounds
the surgeons could not reach.
And Klinger .... dear, impossible Klinger ...
parading through catastrophe
in gowns, hats, scarves, and schemes,
making us laugh until tears came,
never knowing that before the hour ended
other tears might come instead.
That was the miracle.
Comedy and sorrow
walking arm in arm.
One moment laughter,
the next a quiet room
and some hidden chamber of the heart
gently opening.
It spoke of war,
yet it was never about war.
It was about endurance.
About friendship.
About carrying on
when carrying on was difficult.
It taught that humour
is not the opposite of grief,
but its travelling companion.
Week after week,
year after year,
the excellence never faltered.
The writing stayed true.
The humanity stayed intact.
The tent never became a set.
The people never became caricatures.
They aged beside us,
and we, without noticing,
grew older beside them.
Then came the evening
we always knew would arrive.
The final farewell.
The helicopters fading.
The camp emptying.
The roads diverging.
Goodbyes spoken.
That tune again, dwindling.
And millions sitting in quiet rooms
mourning friends
who had never truly existed,
except in that mysterious place
where fiction becomes family.
Since then, television has offered
masterpieces .... darker, larger,
more fashionable.
But greatness is not enough.
A show may earn admiration.
A show may earn respect.
Only rarely
does a show earn real affection.
Only rarely
does it become part of a life.
And that is why,
all these years later,
that old tent hospital
still stands in memory.
The laughter still echoes.
The tears still gather.
The tune still lingers in my ear,
The friends are still waiting ....
In that gentle province of the heart
where beloved things never quite depart.
And when we think of them,
we do not remember a television series.
We remember the event
of coming home to
"MAS*H".
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1 June 2026