Jeanie's Letters Home

Note and Disclaimer: I don't own the character of M*A*S*H, but the character of Captain Jeanie Morrison (the main character of these stories) belongs to me. If you want to use her, please message me with permission first. This is the second story of her tour in Korea, but this time, it's her experiences and feelings through letters home, to the 4077th and elsewhere. Enjoy!

December 29, 1951
The 4077th, Korea to the 43rd, San Francisco

Dear, dear, dear Dean,

Everything has been going well here at the 4077th as usual, if you must know about the crazy medical unit you used to guard and are coming back to when your training is complete. The cold snap has already come upon us, although it has been warm beforehand and we had a pleasant Christmas. Indeed, we should feel lucky that the orphans who visited got to play with us outside. I can't complain about that, even with the wounded coming outside to enjoy it. It was pretty weather for a while, if you can believe it. We've had sunny days and temperatures in the fifties, according to the outdoor thermometer. However, all things that are good and green must come to an end. After Christmas Day, the temperatures moved back to the teens and it's been that way ever since.

It is nerve wrecking, this cold weather. The poor wounded are pouring in ever since the usual Christmas truce, via the new Christmas/New Years' offensives, all in thanks to our side, who can't take the word "peace" to heart. More of them have hypothermia and frostbite than ever before, most of them losing toes and fingers. Dammit, how I hate it, especially those who command the men and come in fairly bundled up and with lighter wounds. Officers are spared usually, which makes it worse for those who do the dirty work. I want to do something dirty, evil and rotten to them at times, but remembered that I am one of them, often cursing every time I recall I am a captain. I want to spit on the person who promoted me, who thoughts that nurses equate to officers.

Otherwise, there has been little to think about or even do here in the little off-duty hours that are offered to me, your faithful sister, who writes to you often enough, even though you know that I hate to write, especially long letters, which I'm sure this is going to be. I can't grumble, however sad this situation is, the "police action" they call it where you are now. War…the "police action"…it has changed everything I know about life. The beautiful countryside that we both admired is still being blown to bits with bombs and there isn't a damned thing we can do about it except for doing the duties we were bound to obey.

Enough of this already! Let's have a change of topic here…

So, I found out that you were stationed back in San Francisco by the head nurse here (you will remember Major Margaret Houlihan of course). She found out about my letters being sent back because I had the wrong address, thinking that you were still in Korea and unable to contact anyone. She got on the ball for me and phoned Headquarters in Seoul, demanding to know your whereabouts, and viola! Now I know where you are, stateside in California again, you lucky devil! You were stationed there again, for some training reason, I heard. Don't tell me about it!

Now, I am amazed by the actions done by the chief nurse of this unit. This being the person who used to yell at me all the time and called me a "bumbling idiot"! What a change! It makes me wonder what is between Margaret and me. More on that later, so hold that thought…

Anyhow, my heart aches to be where you are. It must be exciting to ride down those cable cars and seeing all those sights that we both promised we'd see after this fighting is finished. God, you remember when we were first told that we'd be sent overseas to Korea? One of our stops after Bloomington was San Francisco (well, I snuck in), although I had no chance to see its unique beauty and feel the cool breezes as you probably are doing right now. I had to leave as you finished some training for Korea and stayed on for some months. And then, I was just shipped onto the next plane for Hawaii, Guam, Japan and then Korea (quickly because I AM a security risk of course). I stayed here, you came here and then you were ordered back stateside before your next tour of Korea.

Yes, I know about that too, thanks to Margaret again. Your combat unit, the 43rd, is scheduled to come here in early February, as you know already. Like that's a secret! And you're coming back to the 4077th, thank God!

Speaking of things not being secrets anymore, I have heard that there has been tragic news in Bloomington. You have most likely heard this as well. Clarence, our lovely stepfather, has died of a" heart attack". Mom wrote to me earlier this week and even phoned here awfully frantically yesterday, looking for me. Radar had to reassure her that I'd call her as soon as I was out of the OR. It was that phone call that she told me that he died. Well, Clarence went into the next life doing what he liked best. I'll quote from the phone conversation minutes after my fifty hours in meatball surgery: "He was doing the things in life he appreciated and was caught, early this morn, smiling in his bed."

Geez, haha, just imagine that, Dean! Clarence was in bed with another woman when he died! Mom was covering it up by saying that he was doing what he did best. To her, it was supporting the family or being faithful to her, but she probably meant that he was praying somewhere and being devout. We all know what he did though and that's what makes it justified almost.

However, Dean, I can't gloat about this completely without being heartless like Daddy. I grieve with Mom about this because he was supposedly the love of her life after all. Well, I can't say that I love him either, so don't you dare make a face at me! I know you that didn't love him in any way and would have preferred him dead. Concerning Mom though, I guess Daddy doesn't count as some love of her life, even though the two DID adore each other very much before we were born. They spent a few years together before Daddy started to drink more and the two divorced.

Do you remember that, Dean? Remember that we had to take care of ourselves when we were small? It was so long ago! It's almost unbelievable that this all happened and that we are so far away from it all. In either case, the past merged into the present without us being there. It does unnerve me still that Clarence is – was – still romping behind Mom's back and was constantly getting arrested for raping (always out of jail of course because the Church says that he wouldn't hurt a soul). Mom STILL denies that her "sweet angel" would dare touch another woman while he was married and going to Church as he was brought up to do. He wouldn't backstab her, oh no, not even with her daughter and the other women that look like her and would do the same too.

Doesn't it just piss you off?! The whole reality of the situation just makes me want to puke!

I can safely write this to you, Dean, because not too many people will see it. I will say that I am almost happy that he is gone. I have to respect the dead, hence the "almost happy" bit there. However, Clarence had done enough damage to many girls' lives, mine included, and you KNOW what I mean. The pain of that night at the hospital is enough to make me cry still. I have not gotten over it just yet, especially after my Shannon was born a few months ago. She was the one who lived and was sent away, not the little boy that I lost.

I knew what had happened that night, when I was just barely sixteen and you were kept from me and could not help me any longer. It was before we even ran off, me flopping at Henry's house every once in a while, and even before the Army took over our lives. Mom was trying to hide the fact that I miscarried Clarence's child. She said that I was just having "women's troubles" and that I didn't hear the doctor quite right, so to ignore him and listen to her.

I knew that Henry couldn't believe it either and he was always watching me, hurt that he found out as soon as I crawled, in pain, to his front door at three in the morning. But of course, Mom knew all about it and she never bothered to do a thing about it except blame me for it and make me kneel in Church for so many hours praying. She said that I was the slut and she protected him from all the –

Well, then, I'll write to Mom of course, and bullshit about it. I can always say how grieved I am about his Clarence's death and touch her with my pretty good poetry (haha), which she even described, herself, as "beautiful, if not base and disgusting, like your father's." She says I am like him a lot, am I not? How gross it would be if it was true! Don't you agree?

Yes, isn't Mom right in saying how much of an actress I can be like Daddy? She hits the target sometimes, but her arrow isn't always straight. And I can tell she's still drinking again by the tone of the last phone call, when she told me that Clarence was dead and that the light in her life had gone out. Daddy's been better than her in recent years, as you know. However, this news you probably don't know. He's in the hospital (again!) and trying to get back into the Army action (again!), so that he could do something more in this war than just killing Commies. Once more, I was lucky enough to get this from Margaret again because her father worked with ours and news comes to me freely for some off reason.

When I wrote to the hospital Daddy was at, I received some more news. The doctors there, who write back to me now, how wonderful they are (note my sarcastic tone, Dean), say that he'll never recover. I know that Daddy is stronger than this. I mean, this is how he's survived all of these years and he walked forward without a glance back. Why can't he survive this? He came to Korea once and he can come again.

You know, I can't dwell upon the past anymore. It hurts me too much.

Oh, Dean, I can't deal with these past few months either. I'm stuck here still and my daughter Shannon, now a few months old, is with Trapper and his wife in Boston because he (and the Army, for some reason or another) believes he is her biological father (so says the official reason and we all know better). He and his wife are a foster family and would take care of her until it's said so. Trapper won't say a word to his wife about the whole situation, although she has begrudged him. He writes to me sometimes, once saying that his wife is always pointing her fingers at him and screaming about infidelity, although he then pointed out how alike Shannon is to another. We all know, Dean, that it might be that Major Simmons person or Hawkeye.

Trapper also wrote to me that he only told his wife that it was only a favor to someone he knew in Korea. It is good enough for now, until she reads the fine print on the paperwork closely and sees that Trapper is one of many men closely associated with me, friend, lover or whatever. Mrs. McIntyre has other thoughts in her head and they are about his affairs with the other nurses in Korea. That is all she thinks about because that was all Trapper did before and even after he married. He chased women.

And who am I to say anything about it? I am just as equally guilty, if not doing worse, than Trapper is and I cannot judge him or anyone else. I'm not married and did not stray from Hawkeye, although I consider being raped cheating on him. Hell, I could have yelled for help (and possibly gotten killed by Major Simmons all three times, I must say) and said something when Simmons was on me. Henry could have helped me…Henry…

Oh, God, and Henry…Henry's gone. I know you heard about it, Dean. He's dead. You know it, I know it. Oh, my God, that day was horrible. Radar came in that day in the OR with that shocking note only those few months ago, only shortly after he left us via chopper and then hopping by plane to home. He said that Henry's plane was shot down in the Sea of Japan, no survivors. And I remember that after that OR session, you came, we grieved harshly and, oh, God…Dean, he's GONE and DEAD, GONE GONE GONE and DEAD DEAD DEAD from us!

I wrote to Lorraine a week after the announcement, to express my sorrow and to share in my grief with her because of how close we all were to him. His older children are in the deepest of sadness because they had lost their father and I had to know if Janie and Molly were ok too. Of course, Lorraine immediately sent me one back, saying how much she missed Henry and loved him, despite everything with Leslie Dish, and sent me that poem, the same I showed you…

Oh, God, Dean, he never saw his son, Andrew, who was born after he left for Korea. Dean, he never saw his damned son! The war killed him! The war has robbed his family and especially that small child of a father and Lorraine of a husband. Oh, God, no…

I know, Dean, I know that promised you that my letters to you won't be sealed with my tears, but this one will and I am sorry for it. I am depressed that I have to stay in Korea until the end of the war and the greatest blow made it worse. The news of Henry's death has unglued me, made this cold place seem a bit more distant, bitter even. I know that everyone took it hard, Radar especially, since he was like a son to Henry, children all of us can be. And we…we are without him, oh, God!

There will always be a place in my heart for Henry. His death has broken my heart in more pieces than I can count, worse than anything else that has happened here already. And I'm sure you're grieving as well, even though you're so much better at the distancing than we here all are.

Our new commanding officer, as you know, is Colonel Sherman Potter. He realizes this much about Henry (THANK God!) and has tried to raise the camp's morale without getting too tough. It has been working, I guess. He's such a sweet person and people are responding to it with a more positive attitude. He's also been desperate to save our spirits here (and some face) and so far, he's been one of the guys, so it's been good in some way. I love him.

The Swampmen has been at their usual best, a new twist with a new CO around. Hawkeye has been depressed because Trapper left without a goodbye. Recently, he has been paying more attention to me lately, so we are once more on board. The eventful days are behind us and stressful ones are most certainly up ahead. Frank is bummed out because his command was taken away from him and has been ornery about it all, more so than usual, especially as Margaret cooled down her once loving relationship with him a LOT. Our new surgeon, BJ Hunnicutt, is just as hilarious as Hawkeye and perfectly drunk when he came back from the airport with Radar and Hawkeye. He's just as good as anyone else here, save for Frank, and has even tried to make things better now that the people here, who have made life to much more interesting, are gone for good.

Oh, hell, it doesn't matter to me about the changes and deaths anymore because I am ordered out of here and am bugging out by the end of the week for a while. Yes, I am being transferred temporarily and it's not by Colonel Potter's orders (he wouldn't do this to me). It's that of good old Headquarters in Seoul, since they are now impressed again with my observation skills. I am going to the Old Soldiers Die Laughing Academy, the Funny Farm, the Little White Rooms, to study the wounded men here and their reactions to the war. I have to make weekly reports and everything, how military of me again!

It reminds me of the time I spent in West Germany, except there was less paperwork there and I had others under my command do that for me. Oh, Jesus, I can't imagine myself filling out these weekly reports and trying to be my very best without wanting to laugh out loud. How annoying is this Army going to be to us, to me especially, who has already suffered enough under its large thumbs? Damn them!

At least I'll know somebody there, Major Sidney Freedman. He's one of those "mind-spinners" that we used to make fun of when we were kids, remember? He's a good guy, one of the best out there, and he wants to help people, truly he does. Dean, don't give me that eyebrow. I know that face is there, even if I'm not there! He used to come here to the 4077th for the poker games, as you remember sort of when you were drinking and smoking so much. A few times, Sidney also runs into "trouble" in the form of BJ's pranks on the still-militant and nutty Frank, who is having some "trouble" (yes, let's call it that) with Major Hot Lips Houlihan. Once, Frank even ran into some with Colonel Flagg, my former commanding officer, who comes here often enough to check on me mostly. I'll get more into that when I next see you.

Now, to the prank I want to tell you about, involving BJ and Sidney. Only yesterday, (remember, the weather has been cold), when Frank was sleeping in the Swamp, BJ told Sidney to yell "Air Raid!" Now, Sidney is staying here with us until I leave with him and when he stops being so depressed and writing his own letters. Now, in the meantime, he also has been trying to find out who the prankster of the camp is, seeing as how some strange happenings have been going about the camp again.

Frank, upon hearing those two dreaded words, jumped right out of his cot and went diving into the foxhole he himself had dug out, telling one and all that this was the hole he was going to use when there was an air raid. Now, might I add that the foxhole was full of WATER?! And that BJ had done the deed?!

It was hilarious! Oh, I'm going to miss these silly goings-on when I transfer and stay away for a while. Maybe I can request an assignment stateside and we can have some fun of our own, a faint hope that it'll be? Even if I could, I know that there are many military brats over there and playing jokes on them would be fun as hell! You and I would be perfect.

Oh, Dean, dammit, I'd give anything in this world to go back to what it used to be: Bloomington, Henry and Lorraine and the gang, endless peace and fields farther than what we can see, without our parents. However, I also understand that the past is forever locked in our heart's memories and there it will stay. Nothing can ever be the same ever again. The memories, as I've been advised to do for the years we've been in Mom's household, have to remain as stoic as our emotions. We should never reach for them and never pine for what they stood for us.

Dean, do I ever want it to relive every moment we've had together with everybody we've loved, every time we've given everyone a hard time only to laugh later…anything that can paint a smile on my older face. I'm not yet thirty years old and have been feeling older and older as time goes on and with every death we are aware of. No matter if it was personal or if it was a kid, I age. I see it everywhere in this unit too and it kills me more.

I miss you more than anything in this cruel and unusual world, Dean. You are all that I have now in this family save for my daughter, so don't get killed before I see you! If only, if only, I can see your face again. I hold you dear in my heart forever, a sister's key thrown away and never forgotten –

Your sister forever, Jeanie