MASH: A Novel about Three Army Doctors

We act insane, because if we didn't, we would most surely become insane. - Hawkeye

When Radar O'Reilly, just out of high school, left Ottumwa, Iowa, and enlisted in the United States Army it was with the express purpose of making a career of the Signal Corps.

You know who we been living with for the past week? We been living with the only man in history who ever took a piece in the ladies’ can of a Boston & Maine train. When the conductor caught him in there with his Winter Carnival date she screamed, ‘He trapped me!’ and that’s how he got his name. This is the famous Trapper John. God, Trapper, I speak for the Duke as well as myself when I say it’s an honor to have you with us. Have a martini, Trapper.

He might make it, even if all I really did was hit him in the head with an axe.

When they awakened at four o'clock in the afternoon, all was quiet. Duke peeked out the door and closed it quickly. 'What do the initials M.P. stand for?' he inquired. 'Shore Patrol,' answered Trapper John.

Normal people go crazy in this place.

A good anesthesiologist is essential to any important surgical effort. Without one, the greatest surgeon in the world is helpless. With one, relatively untalented surgeons can look good.

Look!" Hawkeye said. Duke looked where Hawkeye was pointing. In one corner, kneeling on the dirt floor with his elbows on his cot, a Bible in front of him, his lips moving slowly, and oblivious to all about him, was Major Jonathan Hobson. "Jesus," Hawkeye said. "It don't look like Him," Duke said.

if he can have the patient under deep and controlled anesthesia when it is needed and awake or nearly so at the end of the operation