2

I had just begun to inform Susie about the most important happenings and places here, as the door flung open and Potter and Pierce suddenly turned up . The CO was already wearing his army clothes and Hawkeye appeared in a doctor's white coat and cheerfully shouted: "Have no fear, the doctors are here! Check up is half price today and pre-up grubs costs double!"

Good God, my heart sank into my boots, this made me downright sweat...... Hawkeye Pierce himself !!!!!!! Unshaven and in person!!! He was much more impressive in person than on TV. Approximately 6 feet an 2 ½ inches tall. On the contrary, Potter was small and old, but his enormous authoritative personality made up for his lack of height.

Susie moved nervously beside me on the bed, too, and hissed to me as the doctors studied our X-rays.: "I didn't have the faintest idea of how much appeal Pierce had!......I think I'll pass out as well........"

I bumped my elbow into her side to shut her up. This situation was so amusing, so unreal! I just had to control myself not to burst into laughter!

But Susie went on: "I would have preferred to meet Trapper!"

My self-control was gone by now. I just made to prevent a loud chuckling, I tried to hide my fit of laughter by breathing deeply and pretend to faint again.

Susie was immediately serious again and jumped off the bed: "I told you! Relax, don't get up so soon!"

Potter ordered me to lay down again and Pierce was instantly by my side to feel my pulse. Incredible, what tragic irony!? There I was. First subdued and now my heart was beating wildly with excitement. This scene was so absurd! It is indeed not every day you're acting in your favorite TV-series and on top of that, becomes the "victim" of the leading man!

This unexpected spontaneous bodily contact with my TV-hero more than ever made my heart rate slide totally off. It was therefore quite natural for Dr. Pierce to worry about the tachycardia, so I had to submit to a complete physical.

Potter took my friend along with him because he wanted BJ to get her wrist in plaster. In the meantime I got a real work over by my darling doctor...Dr. Hawkeye Pierce himself. With cool and daring sayings and a naughty undertone, Hawkeye tried to create a relaxed atmosphere. Oh boy, this Hawkeye all right - this old womanizer! I had to restrain myself not to get a heart attack again.

I didn't have to wait too long for the unavoidable questions. For the medical record, Pierce needed to know my name, my serial number (hi hi, I gave him my telephone number.), my rank (I promoted myself to Lieutenant) and as an unit, I invented an Evac Hospital. Little by little, it really began to make fun! Over and over again he asked what had happened and what we were doing so close to the front. As Susie recommended, I decided to fake amnesia. I could absolutely not remember one single thing about the accident.........

Unfortunately this resulted in absolutely bed-rest. Hawkeye wanted to put me into post-op for observation but I achieved, with an amount of protest, to be put in the VIP-tent along with Susan.

The night came quickly in Korea. We felt like prisoners in our tent. We didn't dare to go outside. Major Houlihan came herself to bring us dinner. TOO BAD! We really wanted to go to the mess-tent, where so many great scenes had been (or would be in the future?!). The unforgettable "I've eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish..."-scene or the one where Hawkeye sings "You're the top" on the table without his bottoms, after he was thoroughly fooled by BJ's brilliant joke....the joke which never came!

Margaret didn't only bring us something to eat and drink but also garments, underwear and other useful things.

"My nurses and I have collected this for you because you both arrived here without any luggage," the good mooded head nurse announced and stacked the clothes and details on Susan's bed.

Susie put the same show on as I, when she was questioned by Potter and Hunnicutt. She couldn't remember anything as well. At the moment we were no longer bothered. It appeared, that they satisfied with war fatigue as a diagnosis, and gave us time until we were ready to talk .

"If you need something or just feel like chatting about something, my tent is right next to yours," Houlihan friendly offered, and was gone again.

Wow, what a great woman! And she was far more cute in person than on TV. She was very cultivated for all the dirt and primitive improvisation around here.

Just why haven't we got so beautiful long manicured fingernails! How she gets those into the surgery gloves is indeed a mystery to us !!

We were just ready to eat, when it knocked on the door again. Father Mulcahy was outside. Hesitating, he stepped inside and was touching his hat, which he held in front of him, somewhat confused. His eyes first caught sight on our not yet emptied plates.

"Uh, this dish was awful," he apologized. "Igor has outdone himself again!"

It was liver (!!) with mashed potatoes and corn. We both just ate the side-dishes, the liver was still laying on our plates and we smirked.

"Uh...., once our Captain Pierce threw a fit 'cause fish and liver was on the menu, every day, for 11 days straight" the padre chatted harmlessly. Our grin got even bigger , and I had to discipline myself not to burst into laughter. Mulcahy told us the whole story right up till its bitter end, where the spareribs were flown in from Chicago and just in the moment they were ready to eat, a lot of casualties arrived. Then it had been his, Mulcahy's idea, to feed the surgeons in OR. Everyone pulled down their masks during the endless operations, so they could finally nibble at the long yearned ribs.

We were thrilled by the story, specially how it ended. Maybe we could try to make the padre to talk more about what happened between the episodes, which we, as viewers, had missed.

Obviously he too came to make us talk. With gentle and harmless talk about this and that, he tried to get something out of us. But we remained unapproachable and were not very communicative.

Finally we were alone again and had huge fun with all these unforeseen and funny events. It didn't take long until the next visitor was at the doormat: Klinger! Dressed like an opera diva! He wore a very tight evening-dress, gloves up to the elbows and a feather boa. He wore such high heels, that even I would have troubles walking around. Susie and I intensely tried to avoided our sights from meeting, otherwise we would have been screaming with laughter.

He greeted us with a friendly"Hi, girls," and also laid some clothes on the bed. But he had troubles bending down because of his tight dress. He stumbled on one heel and almost lost his balance. Now our self control was gone! We almost killed ourselves with laughter. That's just Klinger in a nutshell! Too funny! Just think of all the things he had done in the "I'll do anything to get out of the Army "-scenes! And all this live, was too much for us!

Klinger stood there and said deadly serious: " Go ahead, laugh at me. Everyone tries his to get out of this mans army! I just brought you some garments!"

Wow! Original parts of the Klinger Collection!!! What an honor! He brought a skirt and a plain white blouse. He also gave us a khaki T Shirt and an Army-shirt, which he had never worn.

This guy was indeed unique! We expressed our thanks and apologized for the fit of laughter. My God, if he could only see how amusing he is for us viewers and how much the fans love him in women's clothing! He is to blame for the most laughter outbreaks in the whole series!

"Well, I really don't know where you both came from and what you're planning to do," Klinger started, "but this 'Section 8 act' ,was originally my thing! Do YOU think it's such great fun to watch me break my legs in these murderous shoes..."

"Max, all your efforts are actually in vain, because you are the only one who voluntarily stays in Korea after war.....," I prattled away in my cheerfulness. Suddenly I became aware of my mistake. Ups, how could I just blab it out?! What was the "general-order" of all temporal dimensions called: Never interfere in history in any way or any place!

This could change our complete future! Dear Lord, what had I done?!

Klinger looked suspiciously at me with his big marble looking black eyes: "How the hell do you know that?! Who are you? What's going on here?! And how the hell do you know my given name?!"

"Okay, Klinger," Susan tried to mend my silly blunder, "we'll tell you the whole story if you promise that you won't tell anybody about it: We come from the future and were sent here to try to end this stupid war earlier than history tells it, to prevent all this suffering and death....."

"You are either nuts, or from secret service," the Corporal muttered, turned around and strutted out on his high heels.

Some days later there was a rumor going around the mess-tent, that Klinger had been seen in a space suit and heard some kind of computer-voice telling: "He is a visitor from the future!"

Going back to our VIP-tent this very evening , we hardly had any time to digest all these incredible and funny experiences. Soon the next visitor announced his appearance, in the shape of Major Charles Emerson Winchester, the Third! Oh boy, it really seemed we were the talk of the town....uh, the camp. Apparently, everyone knew about our inexplicable emerge and it must have spread like wildfire all over camp.

Now it was Susie's turn to have a stupid grin all over her face over the fact, that we were in THE seasons, where her favorite doctor had arrived.

The pompous and bombastic Winchester was just as curious as the others, who visited us for a number of reasons. At the ambitious pretend to find a neurological reason for our amnesia, he actually got on our nerves at this late hour.

I tried to explain to him, that we in fact were Hawkeye and Hunnicutt's patients. Susan was no longer capable of doing anything, because of the fact that, she adored Charles so much. By now, she was close to having a heart attack!

Outside the tent we heard laughter, then someone started to sing. Blaring out some sort of tune from a musical, the singing Pierce and Hunnicutt stumbled into our tent, obviously drunk.

"Hey, you blue blooded third ass, what are you doing with our patients," Hawkeye mobbed Charles.

"Correct! They are our patients! You have no business here," BJ confirmed - it was hard for him not to sway.

"I just wanted to make sure, that both of you cretins didn't overlook anything neurological," Winchester replied, with a contemptuous look.

Hawkeye put his hands to his hips: "Hey, Major high class onion! Do keep in mind, that I'm still the Chief Surgeon around here! And believe me, we've made all the necessary examinations even when there, in this special case, is nothing to operate on !"

Right in the middle of this quarrel, a fuming Potter stormed in, wearing his robe and holding a washcloth: "Pierce, Winchester, Hunnicutt, O U T!!! The girls badly need their rest!"

Like surprised pupils the subdued officers slipped outside...... Hawkeye grumbling to himself.

At this late hour, we hadn't really given the idea much consideration, that we hadn't seen much of the camp, except the hospital and our tent.

"So Nicky, how about a moonlight stroll in the camp", Susan asked

"No thank you, the trip over here was a great shock to my bones". I tried to refuse Susan's enthusiastic proposal. "And by the way, it's too dangerous to sneak around at night. Think of all the mines!"

"Come on! They too sneak around in the middle of the night in some of the episodes," Susan informed me. " Just think of Margaret and Frank! It is only dangerous if you're in the minefield!"

"Uh, I would really like to see the famous signpost with my own eyes!" I was caught up in her enthusiasm.