PERSONAL JOURNAL, DOCTOR BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PIERCE  DECEMBER 24TH, 1953

Trying to make up even a partial list of the absurdities I encountered in Korea would be a lot like stuffing a banana back into its peel, without damaging either the fruit or the skin. It might be possible to do, but it would take so long, I doubt even Radar would want the banana anymore.

So I choose for the sake of argument to concentrate on a few absurdities of a more manageable size. One is post-Korea, but it ties in well enough that it can cross the pond on its own.

Basically, Trapper and his brood left Boston sometime last year. When Charles replaced Frank, a stray thought came in that he and Trapper might meet someday, but it wouldn't likely come to much. Those two are just different enough to function together, if they had to. A few wisecracks, a hearty handshake, and th-that's all folks. What I never considered was what happens when like meets like, and neither one likes like. See, Trapper had moved to San Francisco, which is just near enough to Mill Valley that he met BJ, sometime in late October. Short version: I just spent most of the last month playing peacemaker. While they now have a working truce, the making of which I'll write down when its all less meshunige in my head, it all felt like the war had come home, and I don't need that. I'm not just being selfish when I say that. I need the war to be in another place, another time.

The second absurdity is the woman I'm with. I never bought that bunch of bubcus about people hating each other wanting each other. If that were true, I'dve been with half the generals in Korea, and I just don't have that kind of spare energy. Not since my tennis elbow kicked in. See, Margaret and I are honest people. When we hated each other, it was the real thing. Reports that called my sanity, loyalty and shoe size into question. Pranks meant to rob a hard-working officer of every last shred of dignity and/or clothing she ever had, depending on whether or not they had a good movie playing in the mess tent that night. No, our hate was not what Sidney would call sublimation. It was raw, raucous and wild, and if we'd both regularly carried sidearms, Digger wouldn't have been in camp by mistake.

It couldn't last. The really pure hates never do. Stalin and Hitler both confessed that eventually, they were just going through the motions. Prejudice and bigotry are impersonal. What Nurse Order and Doctor Chaos had was very personal. We both took things too seriously, and that was what killed the hate. Eventually, I had to notice that when she stood over a nurse with a patient, mistakes got corrected. Eventually, she had to notice that she had to watch Frank for other than carnal reasons, while I rode herd on myself. If we'd both been a little less perfectionist, that hate might never have been viciously murdered by a brutal grudging respect. The stuff in-between is all its own story, but its the first Christmas we're home, and she's here with me. Mostly by our own choice, which is the real surprise.

Which brings me to the third absurdity I'll bother with here. The flu shots we gave one another when most of the staff got taken out weren't flu shots. I'm still not sure what they were. But the people who sent them don't answer to anyone we've elected. Scary bunch. These are the people who give the marching orders to the 'they' in 'That's what they say.' As time went by, we learned of as many as two thousand other folks in the KTO who got these shots---and who also got an early ride home the hard way. It all ties in. Why we had to stop talking about Spearchucker, Duke and Ugly John. The unit down the road that Flagg kept his eye on--out of non-paranoid fear. What really happened to Henry's plane.

We never got sick from the shots. In fact, we both stopped getting sick at all, unless we pushed common sense really hard. Thank God Margaret suggested to Potter we stop giving blood, and wear gloves with an extra layer. If those kids hadn't needed us, I would never have risked touching them. Thankfully, the garbage was not infectious in us. We thought that maybe we were the statistical break in this little apothecary of horrors. And we were. That became the problem. These shots made an honest man out of Mister Nieschtze.

At first, we chalked up the extra endurance to getting acclimated. Had to happen, right? The strength increase was so subtle, I just assumed I was doing adrenal martinis. But the day that Margaret and I decided to cut Sherman's post-Olympic taunt off by pushing up that truck, we knew something was going on besides Klinger's dress auction. Little by little, though, we wrote off almost everything. War makes people tougher, when its not making them deader. You don't need Howitzer Al to tell you that.

When I arrived home, though, I knew I was changing. Swimming the lake was like doing laps in the bathtub. Digging a well was light yardwork to me. I started keeping my practice open twelve hours a day in a town that could never hope to need it. The stress-induced grey hair I'd gotten cleared up so fast, I had to buy hair darkener I never used, just so people would think I was dyeing it.

Of all the people at camp, only Margaret mentioned anything similar when I called around. However, Mrs. Burns still thinks I'm Frank's former secretary disguising her voice. Which raises all kinds of mental images I'd just as soon do without. In the meantime, things got worse. It took Dad to notice I was avoiding the sun. I wasn't burning. But I now needed so little light to see by, it was like standing right under stadium lighting. Dealing with my patients became a chore, since patients don't trust a doctor who doesn't need lights--or eventually, a stethoscope. Should anyone read this,  I know what it all sounds like. But when all the senses expand like this, up up and away are not the first words in your head. For me, those words would be hell itself. And as I learned, I had it good.

It was September when I found her. For once, her being naked had no appeal, since it had come by way of her clothes burning off from friction. Margaret Houlihan had always been a good sprinter, and her hearing had always been over-sensitive. Now, she could barely function. She had run cross-country like some kind of cheetah, trying to reach me. I put her up in my walk-in closet, and I envy her. Its a quiet place I can never bring myself to enter, as my own hearing takes a few jumps.

Its Christmas Eve, though, and I wake her. Its time.

------------------------------------------------------------------

"Margaret?"

She winced, and he remembered to speak only in hushed tones.

"Do we have to go outside?"

"You'll like it. I promise."

Love her or hate her, it repeatedly ripped his guts out to see someone this strong brought so low. Their conditions would change for the better, but for then and there, he had to guide her out while watching his own step.   "There. We'll only need a light jacket."

"Hawkeye? Why are we out here?"

He gently removed her sleep-mask and ear-plugs.

"Tell me what you smell, Margaret."

She smiled.

"The air's too crisp to carry most smells. Oh, Hawkeye. Its heaven."

He gently grasped the edges of her fingers.

"What do you see?"

Her eyes were tearing.

"The starlight is filtered by so many different things. Its like a solarium used to be, when I could bear going in them."

He lightly rubbed the edges of her ears.

"What do you hear?"

Margaret let her range go as far as it could. There were no shells landing, no guns, not so much as a backfire. After so many months shut in, it was the best gift Hawkeye could have given her. She kissed him for as long as their overly-enhanced senses could bear, and then she spoke in a normal tone of voice.

"I hear Peace On Earth."