M*A*S*H Ficlet: To The Bitter End
Title: To The Bitter End
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Hawkeye Pierce, other M*A*S*H surgeons.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nothing specific.
Summary: They save as many as the can, but inevitably there are times when the best they can do isn’t good enough to save a life.
Word Count: 712
Written For: My own prompt ‘M*A*S*H, Any, No matter how hard they try, some of the kids that pass through their doors go out in body bags,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own M*A*S*H, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
It isn’t right, this is not the way the world should be, but this is a war, no matter what the people in the know would have everyone believe, and in wartime, different rules apply. That doesn’t make anyone feel any better; not the soldiers fighting on the frontlines, risking their lives in a country that isn’t their own, and not the field medics and the M*A*S*H surgeons, fighting their own battles, piecing together what’s left of enlisted men and officers alike, salvaging what they can after the weapons of war have done their worst.
It makes Hawkeye and the other M*A*S*H surgeons angry. They do their damndest to save lives while the military machine just tosses more young people into the fray as if they think they have an inexhaustible supply, and for what? To gain and hold a little more ground, another nameless, pointless hill? What do they really think they’re achieving other than killing off the best and brightest of a whole generation of young Americans?
Not that it’s just the American troops getting decimated out on the field of battle; there must be at least twenty countries represented among the United Nations forces, not to mention the Koreans and their allies, who are suffering just as many casualties, both armies getting ripped apart by mortars and grenades and bullets and anything else they can throw at each other. It’s senseless slaughter and sometimes it seems neither side will stop until they’ve wiped each other out. They might even succeed; they’re trying hard enough.
The men and women of the M*A*S*H units aren’t about to give up though, not without putting up a fight of their own. The difference is, their weapons are scalpels and sutures, painkillers and antibiotics. One after another they pull kids back from the brink of death, in many cases just so they can be sent back out and get shot up all over again.
Some of them get to go home, the crippled, the blinded, the ones missing important body parts like hands and feet, arms and legs. In one respect they’re the lucky ones. They were hurt bad enough that they’re no longer able to fight, but survived long enough to return home to their loved ones. Most of the injured either get patched up and return to the fighting as soon as they’re well enough, or they get to go home in a box.
The surgeons do the best they can, working non-stop for hours on end in appalling conditions, battling exhaustion and impossible odds, but it’s not always enough. They’re limited by available resources, whether that be blood or penicillin or bandages, and sometimes even their best falls far short of what’s needed. They can’t work miracles no matter how much they might wish they could. All too often the critically injured kids stretchered into the makeshift operating theatre go out in body bags. The worst part of it is that some of them might have survived if they could have been treated sooner, or if the right equipment had been available. The field medics stabilise the most seriously injured as well as they’re able before they’re transported to the nearest surgical unit, but they have even fewer resources at their disposal than the M*A*S*H surgeons do.
How many kids will lose their lives before the war is over? How many families will be left shattered by their losses? And when the fighting does eventually come to an end, will anyone be able to honestly say that what was achieved was worth the incalculable cost in terms of human lives and suffering? It doesn’t seem likely.
But the surgeons are here for a reason; they swore an oath when they embarked on their medical careers and they can’t turn their backs now, not when so many lives are at stake. They have no choice other than to keep on battling to save as many as they can, just as the soldiers on both sides can do nothing but carry on following the orders of those who outrank them, or accept the consequences of attempting to desert. They’re all compelled to see this madness through to the bitter end, no matter how long that might take.
Please God, let it end tomorrow.
The End
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Hawkeye Pierce, other M*A*S*H surgeons.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Nothing specific.
Summary: They save as many as the can, but inevitably there are times when the best they can do isn’t good enough to save a life.
Word Count: 712
Written For: My own prompt ‘M*A*S*H, Any, No matter how hard they try, some of the kids that pass through their doors go out in body bags,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own M*A*S*H, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
It isn’t right, this is not the way the world should be, but this is a war, no matter what the people in the know would have everyone believe, and in wartime, different rules apply. That doesn’t make anyone feel any better; not the soldiers fighting on the frontlines, risking their lives in a country that isn’t their own, and not the field medics and the M*A*S*H surgeons, fighting their own battles, piecing together what’s left of enlisted men and officers alike, salvaging what they can after the weapons of war have done their worst.
It makes Hawkeye and the other M*A*S*H surgeons angry. They do their damndest to save lives while the military machine just tosses more young people into the fray as if they think they have an inexhaustible supply, and for what? To gain and hold a little more ground, another nameless, pointless hill? What do they really think they’re achieving other than killing off the best and brightest of a whole generation of young Americans?
Not that it’s just the American troops getting decimated out on the field of battle; there must be at least twenty countries represented among the United Nations forces, not to mention the Koreans and their allies, who are suffering just as many casualties, both armies getting ripped apart by mortars and grenades and bullets and anything else they can throw at each other. It’s senseless slaughter and sometimes it seems neither side will stop until they’ve wiped each other out. They might even succeed; they’re trying hard enough.
The men and women of the M*A*S*H units aren’t about to give up though, not without putting up a fight of their own. The difference is, their weapons are scalpels and sutures, painkillers and antibiotics. One after another they pull kids back from the brink of death, in many cases just so they can be sent back out and get shot up all over again.
Some of them get to go home, the crippled, the blinded, the ones missing important body parts like hands and feet, arms and legs. In one respect they’re the lucky ones. They were hurt bad enough that they’re no longer able to fight, but survived long enough to return home to their loved ones. Most of the injured either get patched up and return to the fighting as soon as they’re well enough, or they get to go home in a box.
The surgeons do the best they can, working non-stop for hours on end in appalling conditions, battling exhaustion and impossible odds, but it’s not always enough. They’re limited by available resources, whether that be blood or penicillin or bandages, and sometimes even their best falls far short of what’s needed. They can’t work miracles no matter how much they might wish they could. All too often the critically injured kids stretchered into the makeshift operating theatre go out in body bags. The worst part of it is that some of them might have survived if they could have been treated sooner, or if the right equipment had been available. The field medics stabilise the most seriously injured as well as they’re able before they’re transported to the nearest surgical unit, but they have even fewer resources at their disposal than the M*A*S*H surgeons do.
How many kids will lose their lives before the war is over? How many families will be left shattered by their losses? And when the fighting does eventually come to an end, will anyone be able to honestly say that what was achieved was worth the incalculable cost in terms of human lives and suffering? It doesn’t seem likely.
But the surgeons are here for a reason; they swore an oath when they embarked on their medical careers and they can’t turn their backs now, not when so many lives are at stake. They have no choice other than to keep on battling to save as many as they can, just as the soldiers on both sides can do nothing but carry on following the orders of those who outrank them, or accept the consequences of attempting to desert. They’re all compelled to see this madness through to the bitter end, no matter how long that might take.
Please God, let it end tomorrow.
The End