And that's how it was. For weeks and weeks we would have periods of deluge, of soldiers lining the floors of the camp. We would treat them, bury them, or ship them off, and then we would have a period of boredom. All throughout, I became closer and closer to Linda. Something about her made me want to be around her all the time. She was like a light in a dark room and everyone gravitated to her. People's steps were lighter when she would walk into the mess tent or post op. Smiles were contagious when she beamed at you. Radar, the Colonel, BJ, Klinger, even Frank all felt her intoxicating positive attitude and there was not a social event at the 4077th that she was not invited to.

But, through the veil of happiness, you could tell that she was having a hard time. The nurses would shrug her off when she came to sit with the officers. Margaret had made her one of the heads of the nursing staff but when she gave orders, the nurses would throw glances at her that would freeze your heart. She couldn't even walk across the compound without getting the cold shoulder from almost everyone else.

One night, in the officer's club, I opened the door for her and she was hailed by Colonel Potter and Radar across the room. As she passed over the threshold, every nurse in the room stood up and left. Her smile never faltered and she just replied in a jolly tone, "More room to Charleston."

Through the hard times, I began to love her. She was never completely out of my mind. I would ask nurses to swap shifts so she would be working with me. I would pass by her tent five or six times and, when she finally saw me, I would appear nonchalant and tell her I was coming from the showers, knowing full well that she saw through my façade. I didn't care, though, just so I could be with her. I wanted to hold her, to feel her body close to mine, but I didn't know how to ask without sounding like I was propositioning her. I didn't want it to be tawdry; I wanted it to be special. I just had to figure out how...


I was beginning to adjust to life at the 4077th. Above all, I had figured out who my friends were. I could walk into the Swamp at any time of the day and BJ or Hawkeye would jump up and offer me a drink. Even Frank didn't mind too much when I would saunter in and sit on Hawkeye's bunk, asking the boys how their day was going.

But, when I walked into my own tent, Sherry would shoot me a piercing glance and turn her back on me. All the nurses hated me, and I couldn't figure out why. I did my work on time, I finished my rounds in a responsible way, I never once said anything awful about them to their faces or even behind their backs, but I would still walk into the women's shower and would only be greeted with hard stares and whispers.

One day, fed up with the drama, I cornered Sherry and some of the other nurses and asked them why they hated me so much.

"You messed up the order of things," Sherry had said. "You waltzed into this camp like you were the queen and got all the respect we all had to earn. You're buddy-buddy with the captains, you're every soldier's best friend, you have Radar in your pocket, you always manage to get shifts with your bud, Hawkeye and the officers will trip over themselves to please you."

"It's not like I asked any special favors," I replied, tears threatening to give me away. "I just happened to know Hawkeye from Boston-"

"It doesn't matter," Sherry had interrupted. "The truth is that you don't belong with the rest of us."

So that was it: I wasn't part of the club. I finally had the friends that I had always wanted but it was overshadowed with a feeling of disgust from the other nurses that hung over like a cloud. I wasn't part of their group and they let me know it as often as they could.

Even though she had been hard on me at first, Major Houlihan took pity on me and comforted me behind the mess tent later that day.

"I know how you feel, Lieutenant," she had said, awkwardly placing her hand on my shoulder. "They don't like to include me either."

"At least they respect you, Major," I had replied, tears in my eyes. "They don't even listen to me when I suggest things. I try, I try so hard, but they hate me."

"Give it time, Linda," she had said simply, and she patted my back and left.

It didn't seem like time would change anything. The scene they had made at the Officer's Club brought tears to my eyes, but I managed to smile and make a joke out of it. I had been doing that a lot lately, smiling through my loneliness. Even Hawkeye's desperate attempts at cheering me up didn't seem to help. The only solace I got was sitting alone in my tent and reading. Sherry had taken up sleeping in the main nurse's tent and I would have the place alone to read, to write, or to gather my thoughts.

I smiled, I smiled through my sadness, but I didn't know how much longer I could smile...


Linda was having a rough time trying to figure out the way life worked at the 4077th. She was constantly the topic of conversation and the nurses would barely lower their voices when they would talk about her in post-op or in the mess tent. Still, she was able to smile through her pain, and that alone amazed me about her. She would make jokes when people hurt her feelings. When the nurses would shrug off her attempts to be friends, she would just laugh and move on. She would be at every social gathering and have her hand in every activity, but still they didn't let her in. The nurses at the 4077th were the best in the business, but theirs was not an easy club to get into. If you weren't in, you were never in.

Hawkeye and I tried everything we could to help her out but, slowly, she slipped away, further and further into herself. She retreated from the rest of us and whenever she wasn't dazzling the officers at parties, she was taking extra shifts in post-op or reading in her tent.

I hated seeing Hawkeye trying to seduce her, especially during that time. Despite her façade, she was more fragile than usual. I saw how she would look at him when he would chase another nurse. Granted, his antics had slown down quite a bit since she had gotten there, but that's not saying a lot when you think of how much of a ladies-man Hawkeye was. He would strike out with Linda and go try his hand at another nurse and this broke her heart. I wanted to be her friend and help her, but I didn't know how. I decided, one day, that I would try to get to her the same way I did before...