Chapter One, a m*a*s*h fanfic

A/N: I felt like writing something, which means that this is most likely nonsense. Tell me what you think though.

Disclaimer: Don't own MASH now and never did.

CHAPTER ONE

Wars are hard. They are especially hard on the poor innocent souls that get caught up in them by surprise. Just a nice simple tumble down the rabbit hole. Sounds easy right? But of course it's not. Wars are hard after all.

This does not mean that life should be stopped. It does not mean that the pause button must be pressed. It simply means a new path; a new route that is perhaps a bit more twisted and marked then that which had been previously followed. This is neither bad nor good, it is just different. Change, however, is hard and tough and rough and tends to leave a person blinking in a confused daze. But the show must go on, mustn't it?

Life is too tough to quit anyway. It is too easy to allow the breath to continue entering the lungs and the heart continuing to beat. Occasionally the breath and the beat can be stopped, if only for a shallow second. They will automatically start up again, however, whether it is willed or not. This is not bad though, quite the contrary, it is good. Life is good. And life is very beautiful. Too beautiful it can sometimes seem.

Perhaps it is this beauty which can leave a person so helpless. After all, is not death the mother of beauty? Where there is beauty there is sure to be ugliness. An ugliness that can take possession of all five senses; a putrid smell, a rancid taste, sound akin to nails on a chalk board, and a feeling so awful that to just mention it could send shivers along the spine. The worst, however, is the sight. It is a vision so horrible that it can only be handled in glimpses, mercifully brief glimpses. They can be seen in the wilting of a rose or in the red stained ground of the battlefield.

War has all the best examples of life's ugliness. It is almost too much to bear. Who can stand up to the smell of the decaying corpses, to the lifeless coldness of a gun, to the sour taste that follows a well placed shot, to the shrieks of the helpless, and to the bodies that didn't have to lie prone on the ground?

But one must remember that life is good. Life is great. The key to remembering this simple fact is to notice the rose before it begins to wilt. If, however, beauty cannot be appreciated in the present than perhaps the answer is to look toward the future. The distant, and as yet, unseen future. Imagine the rose that will rise again. Carry a precious picture of nature's infinite beauty in the mind. Visualize the precise lines, flawless color, voluptuous shape…

This is a good technique, even in the most trying of times. But sooner or later, usually sooner rather than later, it won't be enough. Once this happens a new technique must be found, a new form of coping. This is, as always, easier said than done. It is, however, possible.

When visualization no longer exists, then a person must form their own small corner of heaven in hell. After all, misery loves company. This, of course, means that a war should not be gone through alone. A war should most definitely not be suffered alone.