The Outcomes of Strife

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. Currently, this is the third and last story of her tour in Korea and into some of the postwar years. Enjoy!


Journal of Jeanette K. Morrison
Captain, RA
28491374
US Army, M*A*S*H 4077
th
September 1, 1952

I don't know how much hope I had in my heart until today.

At the beginning of this damned war, I was happy to be in a new place and away from my former miseries. At the same time though, I was lonely because people were rude as hell to me. Then, I listened to reports of a war being over by Christmas and wished that I was assigned elsewhere, despite my security risk to my home country, and not "home" in Bloomington, Illinois, with my dysfunctional family. Then, December passed and the winter turned into spring. All during that autumn and into the next four seasons, I fell in love, experienced rape a few times and had a baby girl. My child, my little baby girl, was sent to the States and my heart turned cold. Finally, when I thought things could not get worse, Henry Blake, my father-figure and my commanding officer, was discharged and, over the Sea of Japan, was shot down and killed.

It made my heart turned to total stone, taking too much time to thaw for new friends and even love again. In order not to feel anything, to get through another OR session without breaking down and to function in a place far away from what I wanted to be home, I had to make myself steel against anything. I isolated myself. I watched my mind crawl into a corner, beating away every helping hand, and nearly went crazy with grief. I walked, joked, breathed, slept and ate. I drank, collapsed, tumbled and even puked. And yet, here I am, still here and alive and wondering what the hell was going to happen next in my life.

God, here I am. I have been here in Korea for over two years, still broken down and beaten and seeing no end to the war. I have done everything that my country has asked of me. I enlisted in their military to forget about the troubles I had at home. I was trained as a nurse so that I always had a way to care for others instead of taking note of my own troubles. I traveled to where they wanted me to and have given up my life to serve them, even spying for them in a dangerous half of a country, divided when the last war was over and before Korea was on anyone's mind.

Two years ago, after our grandiose plans and my former flame had been killed, my former CO sent me to Korea, to work as a nurse and not continue as their post world-war spy in a divided Berlin. I was trained too well in the art of war and they had figured, hey, send a nurse who used to be a spy, to work at her original profession because it's needed. It's some outstanding idea, is it not? To send a nurse to be a nurse?

Sure, it made sense. I mean, I made no trouble adjusting here and nobody knew my traveling name except if I made a mistake and was tortured as a prisoner. As time went on though, it was proven that that was not possible, seeing how mobile this unit can be. So far, so good. Jeanie Morrison is not a prisoner of war and resides at the 4077th M*A*S*H permanently until the end of the war.

Now that I have seen the countryside here and have known war for what it truly is, I am so disgusted. I have seen too much and have experienced it all and I am tired of it. I don't want to be a spy anymore. I don't want to be a nurse anymore. Both professions have dropped me in seas of blood that I am just drowning in. I just want to be me, Jeanie Morrison, an empty person who wants to be a mother to her daughter and a civilian to her country. I want to be the civilian I was promised to be and to raise my daughter. I miss her so much and only wish to hold her again. My Shannon, I want to see her again, my poor child in Boston, Massachusetts with a parental unit about to break apart once more.

With so much death around me, breathing in that baby scent would soothe me. Oh, God, it's been a long summer without that innocence, I've noticed, and one that would remind me that this was no longer a game. Another long year is gone almost. A summer of many more deaths, I saw, and it shocked me that a lot of them were personal. It nearly killed me mentally and physically, although I still continue to smile and laugh and pretend that nothing is going on. That nothing going on gets me through most days, although I am screaming on the inside and wanting to chase away the darkness and its demons.

Dammit, too many kids have been in that operating room. Just lately, it's been bothering me. I've been going insane…

I stopped writing in the journal, putting the pen down before I threw it across the room with frustration. I couldn't think anymore about the feelings I've had for over two years now, repeating over and over again my deepest feelings. It was too much to see on black and white pages, empty pages of a book Hawkeye had passed onto me. Although an unusual gift from a nurse (when they needed help with their heater again), when Hawkeye saw how much letter writing had made me feel better, he gave it to me. He didn't need the large and empty book really and liked letters alone. He still was unaware of how much I still hated writing and perhaps will never pay attention to my protests, always kissed away with his eager lips.

Hell, I wrote letters when it suited me. I write a lot of them, sometimes ten pages per person when something big had happened or I was upset (the two usual coincided). However, I didn't really need a journal to achieve the same results, although it would never be seen by anyone (one can hope). It just reminds me of my feelings again and it doesn't make a difference whether or not it's there or not because it's always the same and the exile will continue. I'm here and not in the United States and that's that. I have to deal with it.

I sat back on my cot in the Swamp, thinking. Was this really so bad after all? Was this writing thing in a journal so bad after all?

Well, I didn't think so on second thought. I mean, I just wrote almost two pages of thoughts and feelings that I usually reserve for people in my letters, people who I love the most. Usually, it's been Lorraine Blake, Trapper John, my brother Dean (when he's out on the front lines and needs some company with my letters) and sometimes my own mother (carefully though). It's strange with my mother though because she has grown closer to me this way, despite everything done to me by her own hands. Sometimes, I'll leave something on Hawkeye's pillow when I can't see him or leave some report for Colonel Potter when something is bothering me and I can't see him right away.

Journal writing though? For me? Hawkeye can't be serious! Dean would laugh though if he was here, knowing himself to be the writer and not I. He would have taken the empty book and read it, perhaps adding in some comical commentary and writing more in our own scrapbook of jokes, pranks and other silly things. That alone would have been our private conversation, a circle of trust only siblings had, and it would have taken years to forget about it.

For now and until maybe a few weeks from today, my brother remains unseen and away from the 4077th. Dean's been sent back to Munsan, where Daddy now is with his unit. My father is back on the front lines as a general, asking for the 43rd for help in keeping the enemy away from lines. In addition, my father also asked for Colonel Coner, currently back from Seoul and answering for the large numbers of dead men in his unit. I don't understand what the deal is there, but if I know my father right, he kept his enemies closer than his friends and would like to see himself what Coner is willing to do. That alone might seal the case against the colonel more so than Seoul ever will and make the charges stick.

What's worse in that unit seems to be the competition for the head position. Coner and Dean compete a lot for that command post and it scares me everyday I think about it because it could mean it would go to the death. Although Coner has power that Dean doesn't, Daddy is there to watch and comment about things, like how they should wait for the fire to cease before getting the dead bodies or even how the garbage looks great on Coner (something Dean told me about when Daddy heard that Hawkeye dumped the camp's garbage on Coner). One more time that Colonel Coner does a stupid stunt like that and he's going to be heading to a court martial, another strike on his record that we're thrilled about. It so tingles my body and makes me happy to think about it!

"Hey, Jeanie, are you in there?"

I heard BJ's voice outside of the tent, something that surprised me. Although named as the newly crowned prankster of the 4077th, BJ has been keeping his head low and for reason. After pulling a prank on everybody in the camp, by himself even, Hawkeye and I gave up our titles and handed them to him until we get back at him for it. There much we are planning and something that we cannot tell another soul.

"Yeah, I'm here, BJ," I called back softly as I put the journal under my cot for safe-keeping from perhaps every person in the camp but the rats. "What's going on? Anything wrong?"

BJ seemed slightly amused, although his face told me that he did not quite pity the person he needed to page yet. "I passed by Margaret's tent and she asked me to ask you to come to her tent, snapping like a Venus flytrap. She's a bit peeved. Be careful of that dragon."

I sighed and got up, putting my socks, shoes and jacket on to ward off the autumn chill. I was a little annoyed myself. Margaret had been calling me to her tent a lot lately. Other than teaching me how to take care of the nurses when she's gone on vacation or on conference, she talks about her husband, Colonel Donald Penobscott, and how much she loves and hates him. Usually, when she's in a good mood, she's in love and would gush like she was still a schoolgirl. When she's in a bad mood, Donald had done something stupid and she would rage against him and his prissy mother. I should be flattered to be chosen, but I was always wary and would stand my ground if I needed to and could not take the moods much longer. Margaret likes to talk to me because I'm a good listener and it makes me her feel like somebody believes her and is listening to her. It also gives Colonel Potter some peace and that he is thankful for, something he even mentioned to me some time ago.

So, Margaret's in a bad mood at the moment, according to BJ, and wants me in her tent ASAP. Jesus, I was in some row.

I sighed again. Let's see what Donald did this time…

Soon, I was ready to go. "Sure, I'll be careful. I never know when she'll snap at me too."

Braving the upcoming screaming match, I walked out the door, meeting the tall surgeon near the signposts, showing miles to go before we headed home. I never saw Bloomington there and I always hoped that one of the Swampmen would put up Crabapple Cove. However, I was content with Boston, a hometown of our very own Charles Winchester and a past surgeon, Trapper McIntyre. A place where I've worked and a town always with excitement, it was nearest to the new home I was wishing to be near, even though the chaos of the past month or so had gotten to me badly.

I ignored the nagging feelings in my heart, steadying my nerves for Margaret. BJ and I were as silent as church mice (rats, I should say) as he escorted me to the head nurse's tent a little ways down the road from the Swamp. I didn't think he wanted to say anything that would cause his head to be rolled off of his shoulders from Margaret herself, the angry power woman behind the nurses of the 4077th M*A*S*H. I kept the same way, knowing that to talk about Margaret near her tent was courting disaster. I mean, Charles was right about her. She was half seductress and half Attila the Hun and there wasn't anything that could change it.

"Good luck," BJ said as we stopped in front of Margaret's tent, his hand patting my shoulder in reassurance.

"Yeah, geez, I'll need it," I replied as I knocked, watching BJ run and then disappear into Post-Op.