watching my way through m*a*s*h and i'm awestruck by how much the show does not valorise the practice of military medicine...? the sense of contempt that the text of the show has towards war, the military and american institutions also extends to medicine in some inexplicable way.
they're saving lives out there and it's good work but it's not important bcs they shouldn't have needed to do it at all. hawkeye shouldn't have to stitch up kids on his operating table bcs the kids shouldn't have ended up there anyway. neither should've hawkeye himself. at the end of "the late captain pierce", when bj is trying to get hawkeye off digger's bus, he doesn't give rallying cry about how noble and important their work is. bcs it isn't and they know it. hawkeye is keenly aware of his moral duty but it doesnt seem enlightening or revelatory - it's a noose around his neck.
i'm in season 4 rn and the most dashing, "heroic" acts of medicine they do - when they help that north korean soldier in "the bus" or the girl blown up by the landmine in "welcome to korea" - are when they actively say a big ol' fuck you to their roles and responsibilities as army surgeons.
MASH is so good at taking a premise that should be pro-military and pro-US imperialism via civilian doctors saving people in a war zone and it goes, actually, this whole premise is fucked up. It goes, actually, brutality is never justifiable. It goes, actually, people are worth caring about and caring for, even when you don't know them, don't speak their language, and their actions and choices make your life miserable. Looking at you, Frank, on that last one.
OP, you're so right that it doesn't valorise military medicine. The doctors don't come out of surgery as heroes. They come out of surgery haunted by the decisions they had to make. Which people they had to let die; amputations they made. The people they couldn't keep alive because of time or supplies or skill. And the people they saved? They're just going to go back to the front. To die.
