It was refreshing to read in the Memorial Day edition of the Tribune an honest evaluation of an actual Korean War MASH experience by a doctor who was there. I remember the original movie of 1970, which my wife and I saw shortly after leaving the Navy while serving during the Vietnam War.
Among other inaccuracies in that movie, there was a line that so offended me that I never viewed any of the episodes of the TV series. In one scene, after performing surgery on a patient, the doctor told a nurse to suture the surgical site. The nurse asked if she should suture tight or loose, as if there was a choice. The doctor asked if the patient was an officer or enlisted man. The nurse responded, “Enlisted.” The doctor said, “Make the stitches bigger.”
I served as a Navy aircraft carrier dental officer and have a son who has been an Air Force ER doctor for almost 20 years with three Middle East deployments treating our wounded and never while in the service were we told to treat officers and enlisted patients any differently. Everyone was treated with the best possible care available, and to state otherwise was a slap in the face to all military health personnel.
— Louis Antonacci, Hampshire, Ill.
