New Family

Major Sidney Freedman strode into the company clerk's office, where Corporal Klinger was busy checking over the quartermaster's sheet. The first trick in making trades was knowing exactly what you had to work with.

"Is Colonel Potter in, Corporal?" Freedman asked.

"Yes, sir. He's waiting for you now Major."

"Thank you, Corporal. By the way, what's with the rack of dresses back there?" Freedman jerked a finger behind them.

"Care package from my mom! She worries about me as I am her only son so she sent me the dresses my Great Uncle wore to get out of Korea!"

"He probably had better legs than you do, Corporal. You aren't planning on wearing those are you?"

"Hard to tell sir, seeing villagers come in here all torn up because a reject from a Godzilla movie decided to drop in really makes me not want to be here right now. On the other hand, with no disrespect to Uncle Akim's impeccable fashion sense, but around this place? Who'd even notice? Maybe if I ate a jeep or something?"

"You'll only give yourself disappointment and a bad case of indigestion," Sidney said as he pushed open the door to Colonel Potter's office. Colonel Potter, Lt. Colonel Henry Blake, and Captains Pierce and Hunnicutt were there waiting.

"Hello, Sidney." Captain Pierce greeted from his seat. How's business?"

"Too good. This whole country could use a giant roll of mental floss." He looked at Colonel Potter. "So you've got a special case for me?"

Potter nodded. "Her name is Parna, the stuffed shirts are referring to her as a 'Leporid'. All we know is that she was apparently hiding right under our noses and surviving on the camp scraps when Radar found her and since then, she stays as close to him as she can and gets into a panic if he's gone for too long. There's also the manner of a self-inflicted injury."

"I read the report on that," Freedman confirmed. "Well, this is new territory for me. Let's be clear here. Culturally, biologically, developmentally, we have no guarantee her responses or cues will be the same as yours or mine."

"Not like we have a choice if we're gonna help this girl," Potter replied.

"True enough. Well, I guess I should have a little chat with her. Where is she now?"

"I think she and Radar are over in the mess." Henry Blake said. "Should I send Klinger over to get her?"

"No. Better to do this in an environment where she feels most comfortable. I think I'll wander over to the mess for a cup of coffee." Freedman answered.

"Industrial strength, just like you like it, Sidney," Pierce told him.

"Why don't you boys go ahead and join him?" Potter suggested. "I'm afraid I've got a bit of paperwork to catch up on."

"Alright then Colonel," Henry replied. The four men walked over to the mess to find Radar and Parna sitting together with a laptop computer in front of them being used as a video player. As they approached, they could hear a familiar voice: Eh, what's up doc? Roman Legion convention or somethin'?

"Ah! The classics!" Hawkeye mused. "Plato, Tolstoy, Fritz Freleng."

Radar looked up at the officers. "Oh! Hello sirs! Parna and I just finished a language lesson so we're taking a little break."

"Language lessons?" Hawkeye remarked. "You teaching her or her teaching you?"

"Cut it out, sir!" Radar replied. He hated being teased like that, especially now, around her. He could see she was still watching the screen as Bugs Bunny tripped a squad of Roman soldiers. She grinned broadly and then paused the video.

"Radar?" She started with amusement and waited for him to look at her before continuing. She rather preferred to call him 'Walter' but that was his private name, not to be used with so many people around. "He looks like one of the People." Parna pointed to the screen. "But he is naked. I do not think he is one of the People." She said consideringly. "I think he is great trickster god!"

"Well but he's not…" Radar began to protest, certain that was not a good thing to encourage.

She smiled and put a finger to his lips. "You say it is your law that no one can tell others what to believe! This is a good law I think."

"Well yeah." Radar had to agree on that.

"Looks like you've been busy Corporal." Major Freedman noted in amusement.

"That's true," BJ noted. "You've already taught her more about our country than Major Burns will ever understand."

"Parna?" Henry Blake addressed her. "This is Doctor Freedman. He'd like to talk to you."

"Hello, Doctor Freedman," Parna said shyly.

"Hello, Parna. Parna? Do you know what a psychiatrist is?"

"No." She looked at him curiously.

"Well, while these doctors heal the body, my specialty is the mind. A mind can be in pain too Parna. That's why I'm here. Because these good people are concerned that you seem to have been through an awful lot and you may still be hurting from it in ways you don't even understand yourself."

"Am I hurt?" Parna asked feeling confused.

"That's what I want to find out. In order to do that I want to talk to you in private."

The Bunny girl looked apprehensively at Radar.

"Corporal O'Reilly can come if you want."

"Please Radar?" She asked in a quiet voice.

"Sure, I'll come."

"Alright then," Sidney told them. We can use the VIP quarters." He turned to the surgeons. "Excuse us, gentlemen."

"Sure thing Sidney." Henry Blake replied. "Parna, I'll tell Major Houlihan where you are." Major Houlihan had quickly taken on the role as mother figure and indeed reminded Parna a great deal of her Tribe mothers

"Thank you, Colonel Blake."

A couple of hours later, Radar escorted Parna back to her cot in Radar's office. Radar gently put a blanket on her and pulled the curtain partition that Klinger helped him put up, closed. This was actually Radar's cot but with her insistence on staying close to him, it was the best arrangement they could do. He had a folding cot resting against the wall but he did not think he would much want to sleep tonight having heard some of what Parna had been through.

In the meantime, Sidney went on into Colonel Potter's office to discuss his findings and recommendations with the senior staff. In this instance, Potter and Blake, Majors Winchester, Burns and Houlihan, and Captains Pierce and McIntyre.

"How bad is it?" Potter asked straight off.

"Pretty bad. Not the worst case I've seen but bad enough. First thing is she has to stay here. Sending her any place else may very well push her right over the edge."

"I hate to break it to you Sidney, but that sounds an awful lot like holding an AA meeting in a bar. We're not exactly brimming over with sanity ourselves." Pierce objected.

"On the contrary, for the most part, you people are probably some of the sanest people I've ever met. Eccentricity is not insanity. You people have the job of picking up the pieces from mankind's worst past time and you find a way to use insanity as a defense against the real madness that is all around us. Parna doesn't have that defense. She barely has a 'self' anymore, and if she has to leave, what's left of her may well unravel completely."

"Just what happened to her?" Henry Blake asked.

"War," Sidney told them. "Her people are used to war on the small scale anyway. One band goes out and does a little raiding. Another tribe retaliates. It's all geared to the survival of the tribe. And then they caught the attention of the Saderan Empire. The Empire gave them a war, unlike anything they knew. A war of total annihilation. Surrender as slaves or die."

"Don't get me wrong." Sidney continued. Sometimes one tribe would push another tribe over the edge but the survivors either became members of the winning tribe or were generally allowed to go settle elsewhere. This was different. The Empire made it clear they intended to break all the tribes for good. So they banded together. But they weren't prepared to deal with the way the Empire made war. The tribes raided villages but the Empire leveled them. It was total war and the Empire won."

"But for Parna, that was just the beginning. You see, her tribe's Queen united all the tribes to fight the Empire but when she saw the war was lost, it seems she bailed and surrendered herself."

"A regular Benedita Arnold," Trapper noted sourly.

"So naturally, the whole coalition came apart and her tribe was smeared with the dishonor. The Empire took their time getting around to finishing her tribe off so when they came, her people burned their own villages and became fugitives. They lost the war and their tribe but they still had their pride and self-worth." Freedman told them.

"So what happened?" Hawkeye asked.

"After three years of running and hiding, she broke," Sidney told them. "For one minute she was cold and hungry and miserable and just for a minute, the desire to have a warm bed and a full stomach was too much. All she had to do to get it was to give up one ear and everything she cared about she had left. Everyone she cared about and every last bit of self-respect she had."

"You can't tell me her friends wouldn't forgive her." Hawkeye objected. "They must have been under the same stress, right? And there must be hundreds at least who were taken as, slaves. It's not like she's alone on that account."

"Doesn't matter, Hawkeye. She made the choice. Even if the whole world forgave her, she has to forgive herself and she's not there yet."

"So what do we do?" Potter asked.

"Luckily, she found herself an anchor. Her connection to Corporal O'Reilly has allowed her to maintain the ability to forge new ties. But she needs to be built back up. She needs to feel like a useful individual who has value as a person."

"Give her a job and some responsibility?" Hawkeye considered.

"Wouldn't that just make her a servant? Replacing the old masters with new ones?" Houlihan worried.

"Not if she has a place as part of the family," Potter told her. "Under the MAVNI program, non-citizens can be recruited into the military if they possess skills deemed vital to the service. As I see it, most of our beds are full of people who don't speak the same lingo we do. That's a problem for both treatment and security. As it happens, I think we have one or two individuals not in the US military but who possess both the language and cultural skills we need and the desire for a fresh start." The Colonel noted the Avian girl named Koirre (pronounced choir) in their care, identified as being a 'Siren' as another possible candidate, considering the treatment given to her by human prisoners had gotten so severe that she had been removed to an isolated recovery room for her own safety.

"Begging your pardon, Colonel," Winchester truly did not wish to say anything but he felt there was no choice. "But the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program was suspended in 2014."

"Fortunately, the brass realized we would be needing help in those very areas of expertise and, provided we found appropriate willing applicants, MAVNI was unsuspended. So let's get Parna and Koirre in here and I'll administer the oath of enlistment. They'll be mustered in at a grade of Specialist 4 and will have rank, pay, and privileges as such."

"I hate to say it, but for once, here's to enlisting in the Army!" Trapper noted.

"I can't believe you said that," Hawkeye smirked.

"You can't believe it? I can't believe I said that!"

"Margaret?" Potter continued. "You'll be in charge of training them in military customs and etiquette."

"Yes, sir!"

"Major Burns? Any objections? Keep 'em to yourself." Potter looked up. "Any other suggestions, Sidney?"

"That sounds like a promising start. I'll drop in every once in awhile to see how things are going."

"Thanks again, Sidney."

"Don't mention it. Poker game still on for tonight?"

"Seven O'clock." Hawkeye confirmed, "And if you have any extra aces up your sleeve? Be imaginative and don't make them all spades."

To Be Continued.