Choosing Our [Blood] Brothers

Cue the Waterworks, Y’all!

February 21, 2021

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Between the ages of eight and ten, I loved Mondays.

You read that right. Loved them. And, no, it wasn’t because I was one of those good students who liked going to school. I didn’t. To be more accurate, I loved Monday nights, because I got to stay up an extra thirty minutes past my bedtime…

To watch M*A*S*H.

It was, and remains, my favorite TV show of all time (to ward off the inevitable questions about what other shows make my All Time List, here are a few in no particular order – the original Magnum, P.I., Night Court, the original Law and Order, and more recently Ray Donovan floored me). In all the years since, M*A*S*H has been a show that stops my channel surfing in its tracks, and its recent inclusion on streaming platforms like Hulu literally has put it at my fingertips. Of course, I’ve long owned the entire series on DVD , so even if my Internet is out I can still watch it. I know – it’s a sickness.

Not really. A sickness is something that takes away energy, that drains life temporarily or long-term. M*A*S*H has always been really positive for me and remains a comfort. Then recently — in the last six months or so — it’s been resonating more deeply than ever before. Mainly, because I’m seeing just how strongly the show portrays genuine human connection. In particular, friendship.

Friendship of the deepest, fiercest, most enduring sort.

The show’s setting and premise lent itself to an intense examination and illustration of the deepest bonds of friendship. If you don’t really know the show, here’s your primer: a mobile army surgical hospital a few miles from the front during the Korean War of 1950 - 53, staffed largely by draftee surgeons and nurses. While trying to save an endless stream of shattered bodies, they must wrestle with their own physical and emotional trauma of everyday life in a medical version of hell.  

As such, the show’s characters come from all over the country — some from real places like Mill Valley, California, or Hannibal, Missouri, and others from fictional places like Crabapple Cove, Maine. Personalities run the gamut from down-home innocence (Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly) to haughty arrogance (Major Charles Emerson Winchester III) to zany faux-insanity (Corporal then Sergeant Maxwell Q. Klinger). None of the characters really wanted to be in Korea doing their bloody work (with the notable exception of Major Frank Burns [Editor’s Note: “what say you, Ferret-Face??”] and the early-seasons’ version of Major Margaret Houlihan), but lived up to the challenges with the skill and dedication that relied on — then fed back into — deepening friendships based on trust, common experience, and acceptance (most of the time) of each other’s personality quirks and ways of looking at the world.

Of all the wonderfully rich characters whose various friendships became the fabric of the show, the central friendship in M*A*S*H — it’s veritable heartbeat — was the one between Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce and Captain BJ Hunnicutt. They first met at the beginning of Season Four in what is, in my book, the greatest major character transition in television history (replacing “Trapper” John McIntyre). By the end of the show’s eleventh and final season, they were more brothers than friends. And yet, somehow, they were so much more than both together or either alone.

From a young age watching that show, I recognized the power of their bond. It had a profound effect on how I understood friendship — and how I wanted mine to be.

Yes, in a way that’s a lot of heavy lifting for a kid of eight to ten years old. At the time, though, I was really getting into military stuff; my grandparents were Marines in World War II; I lived just a short flight from Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and saw that for the first time; and I was really drawn to things like military aviation (because, you know... airplanes!) and big giant battleships and aircraft carriers. I liked the confident swagger and the power that came with military bearing, so I ate up books and shows and movies on those subjects whenever I could. 

My parents understood this in me, but I think they also wanted me to see the human costs of war. M*A*S*H  accomplished that in as real and honest a way as could be done at the time. If I was going to be interested in all the bells and whistles, they figured I also needed to see the pain and loss inevitably involved in war. I think they hoped I would find a balance, and I did. I never did join the military, for instance, but I’ve always retained my respect for it and its various roles. I also ended up studying the World Wars, the Korean War, Vietnam, and other wars professionally later in life and have benefited from this immensely. So, thanks Mom and Dad! 

Yet now, over forty years after I first watched the show in its original run (and then I had only watched the last few seasons, when the show had moved from being a slapstick comedy to a much more serious “dramedy”), what resonates with me most is the friendship between Hawkeye and BJ.

I think it’s actually the ideal friendship, one any of us would be beyond blessed to have. I have several friendships like this that in many ways are foundational to my growth as a human being.

In many ways, the two men were strikingly different from one another. Hawkeye, played by Alan Alda, is the quintessential malcontent, and anti-everything that could possibly be considered standard operating procedure or socially appropriate. At his worst, he is a self-righteous and self-absorbed womanizer who can’t show real vulnerability to anyone and operates from a position of rage against any and all injustice in the world. At his best, he has a moral clarity and compass that are unparalleled, and he is a zealously protective friend and wise confidant. 

BJ, played by Mike Farrell, on the surface seems to be the exact opposite; he’s a relaxed, jovial, happily married man completely in love with his wife and a devoted father. He is the epitome of what many look for as the American dream. Without a doubt, the producers intended to create this clear set of differences when they introduced BJ at the beginning of Season Four — in previous seasons, Hawkeye and Trapper John McIntyre were in many ways exactly alike, so this switch allowed the show to push the two primary surgeons in the story to deeper and broader places. I remain convinced to this day that the show ended up lasting so long because of this change (along with Colonel Sherman Potter replacing Henry Blake as commanding officer of the 4077th after Henry’s death in the Full-Stomach-Punch final episode of Season Three).

But over time, it became very clear that their opposites not only “attracted” Hawkeye and BJ to one another, but also disguised core similarities that made them unshakable brothers in arms. In particular, both share a strong aversion to the human costs of war and have equal irreverence for military brass and group-think. They are both zealous surgeons who uphold the Hippocratic oath, and seem to apply that bedrock axiom of the medical world to “do no harm and always be honest” to their relationship with each other and others in the camp. They also, each in their own unique way, embrace humor to cope with the horrors of war. As any two tightly knit friends know, shared humor goes a long way in deepening the bonds of friendship. Both are merciless practical jokers, including busting one another’s chops, as a big part of their friendship investment.

Time after time, Hawkeye and BJ show up for one another during difficult times, although they take differing approaches to problems. Hawkeye shoots from the hip and doesn’t think about consequences until he’s cooled off; BJ, by contrast, is much more reserved and inclined to take a more circuitous — and likely safer — approach to a solution. Their moral compasses inevitably, if eventually, point them in the right direction. They share their thoughts freely, especially when they disagree, but they don’t judge or reject the other one for it. Their honesty with, and yet full acceptance of, each other is profound.

Hawkeye has no idea what it's like to be married and happily settled, and BJ cannot relate to Hawkeye’s unguided missile approach to life. Yet that doesn’t keep them from knowing exactly when to give direct feedback, or to stay quiet and just be there for the other, or to step in to help prevent disaster (or produce victory) for the other. Even when they have full blowout arguments, to the point of screaming matches or one of them moving out of the Swamp (the nickname for the surgeons’ quarters) for a time, they always find each other again — and each grow from one another’s perspective and insights and support. They are never afraid of Messy - they love each other too much NOT to go there.

This is evident in just about any episode from Seasons Four through Eleven, but as illustration I offer you three of my favorite examples of the fierce beauty and durability of their connection. 

In Season 7, Episode 23 (“Preventative Medicine”) Hawkeye and BJ both develop and express a deep loathing for one Colonel Lacy, a commander notorious for producing high numbers of casualties in attacks on targets of dubious necessity. The fact that Lacy is gung ho, yet also somehow blasé about the number of men he gets killed and wounded, only infuriates both of them further. But they come to odds late in the episode, when Hawkeye hatches a plan to get Lacy off the front line for good. They invite Lacy to the Swamp for a drink of their homemade moonshine, and Hawkeye spikes Lacy’s glass with a powder that gives the colonel unbearable side cramps. BJ, initially going along with the ruse, says it must be a bad case of gastritis, which will then take Lacy off the line for a day or two. However, when Hawkeye insists it must be appendicitis and wants to operate, BJ can’t believe his ears. While Lacy is prepped for the unnecessary surgery, BJ lets Hawkeye have it — he tells Hawkeye that cutting into a healthy body is mutilation, and goes against all that they stand for; he warns Hawkeye that he will lose his self-respect and hate himself if he follows through on his plan, and BJ refuses to take any part in it. Hawkeye, in response, unleashes his fury with Lacy at BJ, saying that if all it takes to get a “butcher” off the line is a simple appendectomy, he will gladly do it to save lives. It’s one of those situations where the viewer can see the validity in both sides of the argument. In the end, Hawkeye operates and when he returns to the Swamp, he finds a cooled BJ waiting for him. Hawkeye is clearly feeling remorse, but as BJ tells him that more wounded are on their way in by helicopter, Hawkeye sits heavy on his bunk, thoroughly defeated. BJ says calmly, “You treated a symptom — the disease goes merrily on.” Then comes the most remarkable part of the episode for me; BJ stands to attend to the wounded and as he passes Hawkeye he reaches out, grasps his shoulder and says kindly, “Let’s go, Hawk.” And a chagrined Hawkeye, who can’t look BJ in the eye, grasps his friend’s arm tightly. Bond strengthened.

I cry every time. 

In Season 8, Episode 6 (“Period of Adjustment”), BJ melts down when he gets a letter from Peg describing the recently departed Radar’s short visit with Peg and their toddler daughter, Erin, at the San Francisco airport. As BJ relates to Hawkeye, when Erin saw Radar in his military uniform, she ran up to him shouting, “Daddy!” In response to that letter, BJ embarks on an epic alcohol bender. When Hawkeye tries to empathize with BJ, it doesn’t go well — BJ rejects Hawkeye entirely, saying there’s no way he can understand being away from a wife and baby. When Hawkeye angrily points out that he’s been in Korea far longer than BJ, the rampaging Hunnicutt not only destroys their prized moonshine still, but punches Hawkeye in the face before storming out of the Swamp and into the night. Hours later, he shows up drunk beyond belief on the floor of Colonel Potter’s office. When Hawkeye comes in to see him, he wears his combat helmet for protection – only half jokingly. BJ sees him and then says, “You know what I did today? I hit the best friend I’ve ever had. I’m sorry, Hawk, I’m sorry.” Hawkeye responds by just joining his friend on the floor. BJ finally opens up — the first time Erin had ever said the word, “Daddy,” it wasn’t to him. And, he was never going to be able to get back the time he’d lost, which was, as he put it, “Erin’s lifetime.” He then breaks down completely, and Hawkeye holds his sobbing friend quietly. No words needed. 

I cry every time.

And finally, the coup de grace: the final scene of the final episode of the series. Season 11, Episode 16 (“Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen”). It remains the most-watched television event by percentage of households in history, a two-hour finale that, to put it mildly, stuck the landing. When the armistice to end the Korean War is (finally!) signed, Hawkeye makes it abundantly clear that he’s not going to miss anything other than BJ. In light of that, Hawkeye really wants BJ to actually say “goodbye” to him, just in case, despite their best intentions, they fail to stay connected back in the States. BJ refuses because “it’s not goodbye,” and it leads to some significant tension between them. But in the final act of the episode, as each main character, one after another, says their goodbyes to the others and to the audience — first Klinger, Father Francis Mulcahy, Margaret Houlihan, Charles Winchester, then Colonel Potter — it all comes down to Hawkeye and BJ. After giving Potter a full military salute as a sign of love and respect (and yeah, I break into tears at that scene, too), Hawkeye and BJ stand next to the helipad, a helicopter ready to fly Hawkeye away while BJ heads out on a motorcycle. The two friends face each other, and things get real — and heartbreakingly beautiful. At the end, when Hawkeye tells BJ he’s going to miss him, a finally tearful BJ says a line that, to me, epitomizes the essence of that kind of deep friendship: 

“I’ll miss you — a lot. I can’t imagine what this place would have been like if I hadn’t found you here.”

I cry every time. 

Hell, I’m crying right now.

Then, after they hug one final time (see this post’s title photo), as Hawkeye is lifting off in the helicopter, BJ shouts out, “I’ll see you back in the States, I promise! But just in case, I left you a note.” As the helicopter rises up, Hawkeye sees a one-word message spreading across the helipad laid out with stones - “Goodbye.”

Now I’m crying some more. Damn it.

Watch the whole scene yourself and see if you can maintain (don’t judge me!). 

I remember vividly watching that scene that night — February 28, 1983 — and falling apart with the rest of America. I remembered hoping that Hawkeye and BJ would find ways to see each other in the years ahead. Of course, at the time, it could only be in person or by phone or letters — video calls and social media and email were only figments of someone’s imagination, so the depth of what Hawkeye and BJ faced and felt as they moved back to separate coasts a continent apart felt visceral to me. I wanted them to take vacations together, to call each other on the phone whenever they could, and write letters regularly - and randomly visit Fort Wayne, Indiana to torture Frank Burns somehow. But there was no way to know their fate, of course, because 1) the show ended, and 2) it was a fictional television program, JD….

The emotional impact of M*A*S*H, and its final episode, stuck with me for a while before cementing in my emotional template and memory six months later, when my family moved from Hawaii to Southern California.

And I had to leave my best friend behind.

I don’t know which one of us was Hawkeye or which one of us was BJ, but Matt and I were just as close in real life as those two fictional characters were in Korea. Like those two, Matt and I had very distinct differences (and still do), but our core spirit connected us from a very young age. And those differences have taught us about ourselves and each other in all the years since, despite going years between visits. We backed each other up at every turn — in fights against our siblings or even other friends, he and I were always on the same side. When we argued, it didn’t last, and we both knew how to say we were sorry to each other. I remember one time after a particularly intense argument over something I can’t remember, as a peace offering Matt brought me a heated up Pop Tart (a really cool snack gift from one seven-year-old to another). I promptly split it in half with him as a thank you, and on we went with our friendship.

Sometimes, the best way to say sorry is with a heated-up Pop Tart. You heard it here first. 

When my family left Hawaii, leaving Matt felt like leaving a limb behind. I didn’t know how I was going to function without him. I was a sensitive and often scared little boy, bullied at school, but never by him. That mattered a lot to me, and I remember appreciating very deeply how easy it was to be his friend and how much he enjoyed being mine. There was no one I was happier spending time with, and I looked forward to our sleepovers and baseball practices and Cub Scout outings because I knew I’d get to spend time with him. We had met at church as toddlers, so we had no memory of not being in each other’s lives. So many of our earliest memories and accomplishments were together, and I just couldn’t see myself replicating any of that with anyone else, whether in Hawaii, Southern California, or the surface of the moon. It just couldn’t compute in my young mind and heart.

It was my first real experience with grief of loss. I understood how Hawkeye and BJ must’ve felt. We knew we loved each other deeply, but had no idea if or when we would see each other again, despite our best intentions and wishes. It was a crash course introduction for me that life is uncertain, our time with each other is finite, and we need to enjoy every present moment. And, like Hawkeye, at the end I flew away.

When I did, I remembered the words BJ said to Hawkeye when they parted, and it’s probably why I remembered it so well all these years:

“I can’t imagine what this place would’ve been like if I hadn’t found you here.”

That was beyond true about Matt. Among all the great things about living in Hawaii, having him as my friend was by far and away the greatest. It was the truest form of love that I could have possibly understood at the time, a depth of connection that even my adult self today struggles to articulate.

While I believed then that we would never lose that connection (and we haven’t), it still tore me in half to leave.

Before Departure Day (August 31, 1983), Matt and I spent a lot of time together, enjoying everything as much as we could and keeping at bay for as long as possible the feelings we knew were on the horizon. We even replicated a “blood brothers” ceremony that we saw on TV or in a movie or something (it may have been in the Lone Ranger movie that came out in the early 80s, but I honestly don’t remember). We took our Cub Scout knives and each cut one palm of our hand, then clasped them together. Decidedly not hygienic and downright dangerous, nonetheless we both felt so powerful and so committed and so grown-up. We still talk about it to this day. That bond has lasted over four decades now. 

I have lived all over the country; Matt has by and large stayed in Hawaii where his roots run deep. I went a long time between visits to Hawaii — from age sixteen in high school until the summer of 2017. Nearly thirty years. Though we had talked on occasion and saw each other a few times on the mainland, it was still a long series of gaps. It never worried me, but time sure went by faster than I intended it to. But, of course, when I did see him again in 2017, it was like no time had gone by it all. I liked it so much I went back the next year. Seasoned and softened and toughened by years of experience — successes and failures alike — we appreciate even more the gift we had been given as children.

Each other.

I’ve thought a lot about Matt, Hawkeye, and BJ this past month as I dedicated all my writing at this website and all the episodes of my podcast, This Show Is All About You, to the various types of love that are so central to our lives. And while self-love and romantic love have historically been challenges for me, when I think of Matt and the others in my life who I have similar Hawkeye/BJ friendships with — Seth, Evan, O’tee (Rest in Peace, brother), Jason, Phil, and Jay — I cannot help but laugh in gratitude at how easy it has always been to be their friends, even though I’ve had my disagreements and outright fights with each of them.

These men are family to me, and yet far more than that. We all have a Family of Origin — and mine is immensely important to me — and our Families of Choice. The bedrock of that is my friends. There are times where I get lost in scarcity, focusing on what I lack in my life, and/or get lost in recriminations as to why I don’t have them, or why I did once and lost them. But it all too often blinds me to the abundance that my Family of Choice provides me.

It is without those people that I would truly have scarcity, where losing them would cut more deeply than any other loss. We all have friendships that don’t last a lifetime — yet still influence who we become — but the ones that do, it seems to me, are the greatest treasures imaginable. Our Family of Origin certainly can be a treasure, a powerful dynamic of blood and upbringing and heritage; Families of Choice, though, are made up of exactly that — choice. My friends chose to be my friends, and I chose to be theirs. A Family of Choice might change (and individual friendships end or change) for a multitude of reasons, yet they are incredibly empowering no matter their duration.

And like the goodbyes between Hawkeye and BJ, or between me and Matt, this is reflective of life in general. We all know that those lifelong friendships eventually end, at least in this world. And yet, in my experience, they really never do end even when one passes away. I don’t have words for that either, though I wish I did. Instead, the connection shifts to a different form of communication, one that is no less real. I cannot put a price on that.

I share this with you in part to conclude our month of Love Talk, but mainly because I’m seeing just how we  all have this in common — Families of Choice that have members who simply will last for a lifetime and beyond. If you’re like me, it’s easy to rest in the security and knowledge that those friendships are ironclad and timeless. But I’m in a stage in my life where I no longer want to rest on that timelessness. I feel a sense of urgency, or… something… prompting me to share this with you and, by extension, remind each of my friends how much I love them.

These days in particular, it feels like the right thing to let them all know again just how important they are in my life. Perhaps this will inspire you to do the same with your Lifetime Members of The Loving You Club. You know who they are — you’ve been thinking about them for a number of paragraphs now, haven’t you? You’ve counted back in your head at least once now how long it’s been since you chatted with them, or perhaps even more so, since you told them exactly how you feel about them. 

We all have those friends to whom we could say, speaking about life in general:

“I can’t imagine what this [life] would have been like if I hadn’t found you here.”

What would’ve it been like had we not chosen each other as family? What would we have missed? What wouldn’t we have learned? What wouldn’t we have enjoyed? Fortunately, we don’t have to spend time on these kinds of questions or “what if’s,” because everything that has happened has done so just as it was meant to happen. And that’s the damned beauty of it all — it was supposed to be exactly that way, with exactly those people.

There is absolutely no scarcity in that.

I’ll always be grateful to Hawkeye and BJ for teaching me that — every time I watch M*A*S*H.

Now go make that phone call/send that text/post that tribute to the person(s) you’re thinking about right now.

No knife-slicing-hands-then-clasping-them needed, though. 

Chins Up, Everyone. 

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A few other observations about M*A*S*H:

• I enjoy the motion picture that the series is based on, but my association with the television characters makes any viewing of the film jarring.

• It’s amazing the growth this show exhibits over its eleven seasons - the first season is full of cringe-worthy moments, nicknames, and activities that could never make it on TV today - with its writing always quality even as it’s tone and and character-building changed markedly.

• The show debuted in 1972, just at the end of America’s involvement in Vietnam (and let’s face it, the show is really about the disillusionment with Vietnam more than it was a reflection of sentiments about the Korean War at the time), and carried on through the years where the nation had to reckon with that war’s aftermath. I was watching it as a kid unaware of all that, but I’ve always wondered how it must have landed with adults who lived through the Korean and Vietnam Wars….

• I preferred Colonel Potter to Colonel Blake (though Henry was hilarious), but Henry does take the honor of having my favorite meltdown in show history in Season 3, Episode 14 (“Private Charles Lamb”). It’s the scene where he finds out Radar has shipped the lamb sent to the 4077th to be the main course for Greek Easter home to Iowa so it wouldn’t be killed. I laugh so hard every time (“one more chewing out and my belly button will cave in.”)

• Many of my favorite all-time episodes are the ones that feature Dr. Sidney Freedman, the army psychologist. Especially the episode, “Dear Sigmund” (Season 5, Episode 7).

• There is a robust M*A*S*H fan community online. Check out the “MASH Matters” podcast, for sure, if you want to hear anything and everything about the show, including a lot of in-depth interviews with former cast members. One of the hosts is Jeff Maxwell, who played Igor on the show….

• No character on the show changed more for the better than Margaret Houlihan - by the end of the show she’d moved way beyond the old “Hot Lips” stereotype she was written as in the early seasons, and the show was far better for it.

• I could go on forever, so I will just stop now.

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Thanks for reading My Sunday Post. Here are some important updates from my past week:

Soul Book of the Week: On Love’s Path: New Versions of Rumi, Kabir, and Hafiz by Mark Ruskin

Book On My Nightstand: Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. Russian epic no one thinks about but should. This will be on the stand for awhile….

Best Show / Movie I Watched: The Sinner, Season 3 (Netflix / USA). Creepy but can’t turn away from it.

Strongest Earworm Song: Ain’t Wasting Time No More by The Allman Brothers Band

Best Guilty Pleasure: A way-too-big box of Hot Tamales candy

Longest Walk / Run of the Week: NONE. Fail. I did yoga instead. Rebooting next week.

Strangest Experience of the Week: Weird snowstorm “hangover” on Monday. I was a Zombie.

Biggest Sigh of Relief: My parents getting their second vaccine dose (and my sister and niece getting their first)

Most Helpful Perspective / Advice of the Week: “There’s No Problem Here Unless I Invent One”

Coolest Thing I Saw: The Perseverance rover landing successfully on Mars. So Nerdtastic.