M*A*S*H
Forty years ago this week, the famed television series M*A*S*H signed off for the final time.
An unlikely hit, M*A*S*H told the story of an American medical unit caring for soldiers wounded during the Korean War. The ensemble cast kept audiences riveted to their screens, poignantly, and at times pointedly, spinning their wartime stories into modern-day parables. In an ironic twist, the series lasted nearly four times as long as the actual war did.
I was still a tween when Hawkeye, Hot Lips, Radar, and the rest of the crew of the 4077 first made their appearance on CBS. It was one of the few television shows everyone in my family gathered to watch, so universal was its appeal.
Just a few years ago I hiked to the open fields of Malibu Creek State Park where the series' exterior shots were originally filmed. A rusted old jeep marks the far end of the base camp. The dirt plateau where helicopters came to touch down is still there as well. I wandered around for quite awhile, feeling the ghosts of my television past ebb and flow around me.
M*A*S*H taught me so much about loss, forgiveness, longing, acceptance, humility, endurance, and the healing power of laughter. But perhaps, even more, about the complicated legacy of the battlefield.
"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash-and-carry, carry me back to Old Virginie, I'll even "hari-kari" if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun." - Captain Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda)
