Smell You Later
Title: Smell You Later
Fandom: M*A*S*H (TV series)
Characters/Pairing: General series
Theme: For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories @ 10_inspirations
Word Count: 986
Rating: G
Disclaimers: I do not own M*A*S*H or any of its characters, etc.
Warnings: Does not give a positive review of war (though, neither did the show).
Notes: This is a bit of a stretch on the prompt, as it does focus on smell, but not necessarily on how you can use it to recall memories. However, it does show associations that smell can make, and perhaps can therefore be viewed as recalling memories.
Summary: Hawkeye is being interviewed, and he directs the conversation on how horrible army food is.
Anyone who has met Captain Benjamin Pierce has learned smelling is an art.
I sat with him one evening, as he ate dinner.
“Have you ever smelled liver?” he asked. “I mean, really smelled it?”
“Sure,” I responded.
“I bet you haven’t, really. How would describe the smell?”
“Awful,” I said.
He shook his head and gave me a knowing smile.
“That’s what I figured. Here smell this,” he said, and placed a piece of liver in front of my nose.
“You know what that smells like? A wet dog who was basted in a rotten egg and chloroform brine for three,” he paused to take another sniff, “No, four days then baked while covered in soldiers’ socks.”
“All of that from a piece of liver?” I asked.
“You should see what he says about the eggs,” a Captain B. J. Hunnicutt said.
“Have you always had this unique sense of smell?” I asked.
“If I did, I never noticed. I never noticed until I had to try and figure what my food smelled like, since it certainly didn’t smell like what it should taste like.”
“So you didn’t smell your food back home?”
“Maybe I did. It gets harder to remember a time before the war. But, if I did, it was more to savor the food than to try and figure out what it is.”
“I heard that ‘the army gets the gravy, but the navy gets the beans’,” I said. “What do you make of that?”
“I’ll take their beans,” Pierce said. “I imagine their food is just as horrible as ours. But then, that’s taking into consideration there can be levels of horribleness. I’m not sure there is.”
“If you want decent food,” Hunnicutt interjected, “You need to be high ranking.”
“You mean, like your Commanding Officer?” I asked.
“No, Potter eats this. Higher. Like I Corps. Generals and stuff,” Hunnicutt answered.
“So basically the people who get those to do their dirty work, get to live high off the hog,” I said.
“Bingo,” Hunnicutt said.
“Don’t tell anyone I said that,” I said. “To have any opinion on this war, er, conflict, especially a negative opinion, could get me fired.”
“You’ll stick out more here with a positive opinion than a negative one,” Pierce said. “But tell me, why do you need to refer to this as a conflict or police action? It’s a war. Why can’t we call it that?”
“I can only answer that off the record,” I said. “And I think you know the answer. It’s so it doesn’t look like the president did anything against the Constitution. Other than Congress’s declaration, I can’t tell you the difference.”
“There is none,” Pierce said. “There is none, and I wish you would put that in your article. There is no difference between a soldier shot during a ‘police action’ or ‘conflict’ and a war. In both you’ll have people like Frank Burns.”
“Frank Burns?” I asked.
“He should be arrested for impersonating a doctor and human being. He loves this. He thinks that North Koreans are any different than South Koreans or Americans. Did you know that North Koreans bleed the same blood as us?”
“You know that was said off the record, right?” Hunnicutt asked.
“I won’t put Pierce into danger,” I promised.
“Do it. It was said on the record. What can they do? Kick me out of the war?” Pierce said.
Hunnicutt and I shared a knowing look.
“Treason, Hawkeye. They’ll arrest you for treason,” Hunnicutt said.
“Can I ask you a question out of pure civilian interest?” I asked.
“Go ahead,” Hunnicutt said.
“Do you come up with nicknames for each other?”
“Our interactions are just like they would be if we met each other stateside,” Pierce said.
“Except we drink more,” Hunnicutt said.
“That’s true. I’d never have a still in my basement. But, as far as nicknames, just being in a war together didn’t cause us to come up with special code names for each other or anything,” Pierce said.
“I call him Hawkeye which is a nickname his dad gave him,” Hunnicutt said.
“And I call him B. J. or Beej; which is his name.”
“Even with Frank, we’ll call him Ferret Face, but that’s because he once told us his brother called him that.”
“What about Hot Lips?” Hunnicutt asked.
“We’d call her that as a civilian. Really, the only thing that you could say was a military nickname would be to use someone’s ranking in there, and we haven’t done any of those.”
“I guess it’s like Potter said, we’re doctors, not soldiers. The army would like to view us as such, but we don’t have the training to blindly follow orders. We don’t kill people, we don’t view people in terms of friend or foe. Well, most of us don’t. The army has rules on how we should treat people in a certain order based upon their nationality. But, with the exceptions of Frank and Margaret, we all think those rules are stupid and racist, and therefore we try to run pre-op in terms of injury, and who needs to be treated first,” Hunnicutt said.
“Of course, on occasion, not respecting the army rankings has gotten us into trouble before. I once got in a fight with a general or something,” Pierce said.
“How did you get out of that?” I asked.
“He saw me operate. Being a good surgeon has gotten me out of trouble more than once.”
Then over the speaker we heard, “Grab your favorite doctor or nurse and come find a dance partner. We’ve got wounded!”
“Do you mind if I watch you two work?” I asked.
“Sure. Let’s get over to the wounded,” Pierce said.
All joking which had been on both of their faces was gone, and I could see they could easily switch from good humored to an almost robot like efficiency.
Fandom: M*A*S*H (TV series)
Characters/Pairing: General series
Theme: For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories @ 10_inspirations
Word Count: 986
Rating: G
Disclaimers: I do not own M*A*S*H or any of its characters, etc.
Warnings: Does not give a positive review of war (though, neither did the show).
Notes: This is a bit of a stretch on the prompt, as it does focus on smell, but not necessarily on how you can use it to recall memories. However, it does show associations that smell can make, and perhaps can therefore be viewed as recalling memories.
Summary: Hawkeye is being interviewed, and he directs the conversation on how horrible army food is.
Anyone who has met Captain Benjamin Pierce has learned smelling is an art.
I sat with him one evening, as he ate dinner.
“Have you ever smelled liver?” he asked. “I mean, really smelled it?”
“Sure,” I responded.
“I bet you haven’t, really. How would describe the smell?”
“Awful,” I said.
He shook his head and gave me a knowing smile.
“That’s what I figured. Here smell this,” he said, and placed a piece of liver in front of my nose.
“You know what that smells like? A wet dog who was basted in a rotten egg and chloroform brine for three,” he paused to take another sniff, “No, four days then baked while covered in soldiers’ socks.”
“All of that from a piece of liver?” I asked.
“You should see what he says about the eggs,” a Captain B. J. Hunnicutt said.
“Have you always had this unique sense of smell?” I asked.
“If I did, I never noticed. I never noticed until I had to try and figure what my food smelled like, since it certainly didn’t smell like what it should taste like.”
“So you didn’t smell your food back home?”
“Maybe I did. It gets harder to remember a time before the war. But, if I did, it was more to savor the food than to try and figure out what it is.”
“I heard that ‘the army gets the gravy, but the navy gets the beans’,” I said. “What do you make of that?”
“I’ll take their beans,” Pierce said. “I imagine their food is just as horrible as ours. But then, that’s taking into consideration there can be levels of horribleness. I’m not sure there is.”
“If you want decent food,” Hunnicutt interjected, “You need to be high ranking.”
“You mean, like your Commanding Officer?” I asked.
“No, Potter eats this. Higher. Like I Corps. Generals and stuff,” Hunnicutt answered.
“So basically the people who get those to do their dirty work, get to live high off the hog,” I said.
“Bingo,” Hunnicutt said.
“Don’t tell anyone I said that,” I said. “To have any opinion on this war, er, conflict, especially a negative opinion, could get me fired.”
“You’ll stick out more here with a positive opinion than a negative one,” Pierce said. “But tell me, why do you need to refer to this as a conflict or police action? It’s a war. Why can’t we call it that?”
“I can only answer that off the record,” I said. “And I think you know the answer. It’s so it doesn’t look like the president did anything against the Constitution. Other than Congress’s declaration, I can’t tell you the difference.”
“There is none,” Pierce said. “There is none, and I wish you would put that in your article. There is no difference between a soldier shot during a ‘police action’ or ‘conflict’ and a war. In both you’ll have people like Frank Burns.”
“Frank Burns?” I asked.
“He should be arrested for impersonating a doctor and human being. He loves this. He thinks that North Koreans are any different than South Koreans or Americans. Did you know that North Koreans bleed the same blood as us?”
“You know that was said off the record, right?” Hunnicutt asked.
“I won’t put Pierce into danger,” I promised.
“Do it. It was said on the record. What can they do? Kick me out of the war?” Pierce said.
Hunnicutt and I shared a knowing look.
“Treason, Hawkeye. They’ll arrest you for treason,” Hunnicutt said.
“Can I ask you a question out of pure civilian interest?” I asked.
“Go ahead,” Hunnicutt said.
“Do you come up with nicknames for each other?”
“Our interactions are just like they would be if we met each other stateside,” Pierce said.
“Except we drink more,” Hunnicutt said.
“That’s true. I’d never have a still in my basement. But, as far as nicknames, just being in a war together didn’t cause us to come up with special code names for each other or anything,” Pierce said.
“I call him Hawkeye which is a nickname his dad gave him,” Hunnicutt said.
“And I call him B. J. or Beej; which is his name.”
“Even with Frank, we’ll call him Ferret Face, but that’s because he once told us his brother called him that.”
“What about Hot Lips?” Hunnicutt asked.
“We’d call her that as a civilian. Really, the only thing that you could say was a military nickname would be to use someone’s ranking in there, and we haven’t done any of those.”
“I guess it’s like Potter said, we’re doctors, not soldiers. The army would like to view us as such, but we don’t have the training to blindly follow orders. We don’t kill people, we don’t view people in terms of friend or foe. Well, most of us don’t. The army has rules on how we should treat people in a certain order based upon their nationality. But, with the exceptions of Frank and Margaret, we all think those rules are stupid and racist, and therefore we try to run pre-op in terms of injury, and who needs to be treated first,” Hunnicutt said.
“Of course, on occasion, not respecting the army rankings has gotten us into trouble before. I once got in a fight with a general or something,” Pierce said.
“How did you get out of that?” I asked.
“He saw me operate. Being a good surgeon has gotten me out of trouble more than once.”
Then over the speaker we heard, “Grab your favorite doctor or nurse and come find a dance partner. We’ve got wounded!”
“Do you mind if I watch you two work?” I asked.
“Sure. Let’s get over to the wounded,” Pierce said.
All joking which had been on both of their faces was gone, and I could see they could easily switch from good humored to an almost robot like efficiency.