Chapter Text
“Mail call, sirs,” came Radar’s voice, his head popping up in the mesh window of the door to the Swamp.
“Enter, young page!” Hawkeye called out as he leaned back in his cot, his hands folded behind his head.
Mail call was a pretty standard affair – Frank and Trapper getting letters from their wives, and Hawkeye receiving the sporadic medical journal or women’s tennis magazine in between the occasional letter from his father. If the postal service was feeling especially fruitful that day, he might even get a cologne sample or a single dryer sheet, and boy did those days make life worth living.
Radar dug through his mail bag, reading the names out loud to himself until he got to the bundle of swamp rat letters. He handed the first few to Trapper, then Frank ripped the remaining envelope right from Radar’s hands. Radar rolled his eyes then dug back in the bag and pulled out Hawkeye’s stack, holding it out to him.
“For you, sir, you got quite a few this time.”
“The life of a celebrity, Radar,” Hawkeye said, taking the mail and fanning his face with the stack. “But don’t you worry, I told myself I would never let the fame get to my head. I’ll always remember the little people.”
“Oh, ha-ha,” Radar said, scrunching up his face. He turned on his heel, pushing through the door with a grumble.
Hawkeye flipped through the stack, the contents exactly what he was expecting – generic and impersonal, just a few magazines to pass the time and a reminder that he was overdue for a teeth cleaning. But he paused when he got to the last letter. There was something new in the mix this time, a small blue envelope with tight, messy handwriting. Doctor’s scrawl, Hawkeye thought to himself. But he’d know his father’s handwriting anywhere, and there weren’t any doctors at home itching to write him any letters. There was no name in the return address either, just the phrase “Talk to the Troops!” with an identification number beneath it.
He tore open the envelope then pulled out the top half of the letter and began reading:
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Hello soldier!
I realized as soon as I wrote it that there’s no way to say that without it sounding like a come on, but since I’m writing in pen, here I am, saying it anyway. So, hello soldier! Greetings from your new pen pal.
My wife signed me up for this Talk to the Troops service. She said I’ve been spending too much of my time obsessing over the news, and figured this would give me a hobby that would let me do something about it instead of just pacing around my living room. A way to get a first-hand account of what life is like over there. I like the idea, but truthfully the name is simply awful. Not even a play on the word “draft”? Maybe… Drafts for the Drafted? Or maybe something else like Army Amigos? Military Memos? No, those aren’t all that great, either. I’ll keep workshopping.
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Hawkeye chuckled as he pulled the paper the rest of the way out of the envelope.
“Something good?” Trapper asked from his bunk, his own hands curled around a letter from his girls, the bright red crayon visible from all the way across the tent.
“Something unexpected,” Hawkeye responded with a grin. He read on.
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Just in case you were also signed up for this pen pal service against your will, the idea is that you and I will correspond anonymously with each other – shooting the breeze, sharing life updates and what have you – and not only will I be making a personal connection with one of our brave, upstanding men, but you’ll also know that there’s someone back in the states thinking about you. Although I’m sure you already have people at home missing you. Do you have a wife? Kids? Obese dog? Feral cat?
My wife is currently pregnant with our first. Kid, not pet, obviously. My first pet was a terribly dull goldfish named Rex. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t teach it a single trick. Hoping I have better luck with my child. I can’t wait to meet the little one. I wake each day with a pit in my stomach knowing that I may be taken from them if this war doesn’t end soon.
Anyway, if you ignore this message, I’ll know that you’re not interested in keeping up with this, but I hope that I hear back from you soon. I’d be happy to be a friend for you, even from so far away.
Take care,
Your Pen Pal
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Hawkeye grinned down at the letter, flipping it over to see if there was anything on the back. There was a slight twinge of disappointment when he realized there wasn’t.
He certainly didn’t sign himself up for any anonymous pen pal service, so he could only assume that someone at home must have. And there was only one person Hawkeye knew of that took to this level of meddling in his personal affairs.
“Well, Hawk, you planning on sharing with the class?” Trapper asked after a minute, staring at Hawkeye like he’d been waiting on him for a while. “I’m dyin’ of curiosity over here.”
“Lonely Soldiers Club,” Hawkeye said, holding up the letter. “Pretty sure this pen pal service was meant to be a way for the ladies back home to bag themselves a G.I. husband, but it looks like I’m the one who got the husband instead.”
“Mazel tov,” Trapper said with a crooked grin, “Well, are you gonna write ‘im back?”
“You know what? Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll convince him I’m actually a nurse. Get him to dump his current wife and send a stateside proposal through the mail. It could be my ticket home.”
“If that worked I woulda had Lorraine hitch herself to you months ago.”
Hawkeye shrugged. “Her loss. Imagine me as your third. The children would have your hair and my nose.”
“Or my nose and your hair.”
“A Hollywood starlet in the making. I’ll start looking into talent agencies right away.”
**ATTENTION! INCOMING WOUNDED! LACE UP YOUR GIRDLES AND MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE DANCE FLOOR POST HASTE.**
“Proposals will have to wait,” Hawkeye said, dropping the letter to the ground as he leapt to his feet. The two of them raced out of the Swamp and into the O.R., Frank trailing behind them at his usual snail’s pace.
Hawkeye scrubbed up and made his way to the operating table, ready to tend to the latest batch of scrambled soldiers. The air was frigid in the O.R., the outside winds howling and clawing in through ragged holes in the mesh windows. Wounded were being rotated so quickly that Hawkeye’s hands were still warm from being inside the first body as the next was laid out in front of him. It kept his fingers nimble, and he tried not to find comfort in that.
The day dissolved into night, Hawkeye judging the passing of time by the growing ache in his upper back and the pulsing in his feet. By the time he stumbled out of the O.R., the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, casting the camp in a hazy glow.
Trapper was already asleep in his bunk, still wearing his blood-stained scrubs underneath his heavy jacket. Frank was also tucked into his cot, blissfully silent with nary a snore to be heard, a small victory after such an exhausting shift. Hawkeye collapsed in his bunk, the throbbing in his legs beginning to match the one behind his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut, burying his face in his pillow.
As much as it was his life’s purpose to help people, he couldn’t suppress the vision of himself working as a simple store clerk, or maybe an accountant, or one of those waitresses selling cigarettes and antacid tablets in seedy bars – stockinged legs and high heels on full display. He’d take any job if it meant never have to cut into a kid, barely old enough to shave, with his insides making a bid for being on the outside instead.
The problem was, all of those visions were murky, difficult to grasp, link ink spreading through water. Hawkeye had been here nearly a year already, and it was getting harder and harder to picture his life outside of a ramshackle tent and worn-out boots.
He turned his head to the side and sucked in a lungful of cold air. Through bleary eyes he caught a glimpse of the blue envelope, which had fallen to the ground when he had rushed to surgery. He leaned the top half of his body over the side of his cot and picked it up, skimming the words again.
There wasn’t really anything of substance in it, but this pen pal seemed genuine. Funny. Plus, he appreciated that the guy didn’t ask him any questions about the war, despite wanting to know “what life is like” here. He was sure that he would have just tossed the letter aside if it was coming from another Frank Burns type, someone hoping to bask in secondhand military glory.
But this person might actually want a friend. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk to this guy. Writing back could be fun, and maybe having something to look forward to in the mail other than letters from Dad and a gaggle of coupons would be a nice change of pace.
Plus, it would be an anonymous friendship where for a brief moment, Hawkeye didn’t need to be Captain B.F. Pierce, defender of the damaged and sewist of the slain. He could just be...a person on the other end of a mailbox. One that just so happened to be in Korea.
With a groan that echoed through his muscles, he sat himself up, leaned over to his bookshelf, and grabbed a paper and pen.
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Dear Friend,
I must say I was a little surprised to receive your letter. Usually when I get something written to me on beautiful stationery, it’s from a lovely young lady looking to send more than just pleasantries through the mail, if you catch my drift. But I suppose in this case some nice words from a handsome young doctor will have to do.
I believe my father signed me up for this. Good old dad, always making sure the neighborhood kids involved me in their games. To answer your questions, I’m not married, and there are no kids. Dad’s just about all I’ve got waiting for me back home. Can I tell you, when my number came up, my first thought was “Who’s going to get the groceries when I’m gone?” It killed me to leave him. And yet, here he is, making sure I’m not the one who’s lonely. He’s a hell of a man.
Congratulations to you and your wife. I love kids. We recently had a little boy stay here at the camp. His name was Kim. Five years old, injured, and orphaned (or so we thought, but I get ahead of myself) after his village was destroyed by artillery fire. We all loved him. Our CO would let him play in the office, and we had one of our corporals teaching him baseball. Even our one major, who’s quite the pistol, softened for him, reading to him at night.
My tentmate is the one who fell for him the hardest, though. He didn’t want to see that kid disappear into an orphanage. He did everything in his power to adopt him, even sent out a letter to his wife to make sure she and his little girls would welcome the new family member. We here at the camp kept the local orphanage on hold, stalling while we waited for an answer.
But no sooner did he get the go-ahead from the missus and get the paperwork all sorted – and take the time to rescue Kim from a minefield. Kids, always getting into places they shouldn’t – did Kim’s mother show up at camp, looking for her son.
Of course we were happy to see them reunited, but the heartbreak was palpable. We were all sorry to see Kim go. Kids are one of the few glimmers of hope we see around here. They’re proof that the future is possible, because one day these kids are going to be grown ups, too. And hopefully they’ll do a better job of it than we all do.
Anyway, all this to say, let’s do it. Let’s be pals of the pen and ink persuasion. Who doesn’t love to get mail? Sometimes it feels like I and the rest of my camp are living in our own little universe here, trapped outside of time. It’d be nice to have some more connection to the outside world, to know it’s not all olive drab and various flavors and colors of mush.
Speaking of food, tell me. Do eggs still come in non-powdered variety? And are they still making meat? Fresh, uncanned meat that isn’t just repackaged organs? Are we as a society still getting around in automobiles? Or did we finally crack the code on flying cars? Wouldn’t that be something?
I look forward to your response,
H