Episode
M*A*S*H: Sometimes You Hear the Bullet
Overview
Frank throws his back out whilst spending the evening with Margaret, and ends up in traction. He promptly applies for the Purple Heart, having been 'technically' wounded at a frontline unit. Tommy Gillis, an old friend of Hawkeye's, is writing a book about the war, and pays him a visit. Later, Tommy is brought into the camp, seriously wounded, and Hawkeye can't save him. A 15-year-old kid is in the hospital to have his appendix out. He joined up to be a hero back home, but Hawkeye has him sent home, giving him Frank's purple heart.
Details
- Series
- M*A*S*H
- Season
- Season 1
- Episode
- Episode 17
- Air date
- 1973-01-28
- Runtime
- 25 min
Episode context
Sometimes You Hear the Bullet is Episode 17 in Season 1 of M*A*S*H. It aired on 1973-01-28. The runtime is 25 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 16: The Ringbanger
Hawkeye and Trapper operate on a famous Colonel - after discovering that he is particularly ruthless about sacrificing his men, they come up with a scheme to get him sent back to the states with a little unwitting help from Frank, Margaret, and a drunk Henry.
Episode 18: Dear Dad...Again
Once again, Hawkeye writes home to his father, telling him of the latest gossip: the camp gets a new surgeon, who turns out to be a fake; Hawkeye bets he can walk into the mess tent naked for lunch, and no one will notice; Radar cheats on his final exam from the High School diploma company; Margaret rejects Franks advances and he gets drunk late into the night; the camp have a no talent night.
More episodes from this season
Episode 15: Tuttle
Hawkeye creates a fake doctor, Captain Jonathan S. Tuttle, to give supplies to the local orphans. Henry wants Tuttle to be officer of the day, so Hawkeye creates a fake personnel file, and all his back pay is given to the orphanage. When General Clayton wants to reward his generosity, Hawkeye is forced to invent a story about Tuttle jumping from a chopper without his parachute! Of course, Trapper's new friend, Captain Murdoch, obtained the fake dog tags and parachute...!
Episode 19: The Longjohn Flap
The camp suffers from the severe cold, except for Hawkeye who has received some long john's from his father. They get passed around from person to person, as a gift, a gambling stake, a trade, a bribe, stolen, given up to Father Mulcahy, who gives them to Henry, who returns them to Hawkeye as thanks for taking out his appendix.
Episode 14: Love Story
Radar gets a Dear John recording from home. Hawkeye and Trapper try to set him up with a date, but fail. Radar is taken by a new nurse at the camp and she is into poetry and music, so they coach him. Margaret wants to stop the relationship, so Hawkeye and Trapper get between her and Frank until she relents. Radar's "Ahhhh, Bach!" and "That's highly significant," quotes win him the girl.
Episode 20: The Army-Navy Game
The camp tunes into the Army/Navy football game, only to be shelled and have an unexploded bomb land in the middle of the compound. They ring around trying to identify the bomb, and the camp prepares for the worst. Hawkeye and Trapper are left the task of following instructions to disarm the bomb, which turns out to be full of propaganda leaflets from the CIA.
Episode 13: Edwina
The nurses go to extremes lengths to find a date for Nurse Eddie - they won't go out with anyone until Eddie gets a date. The men draw straws, and Hawkeye is the big loser, especially after Eddie nearly kills him in a scene resembling teenage "mating" rituals.
Episode 21: Sticky Wicket
Hawkeye and Frank argue over Frank's surgical ability. Hawkeye performs a difficult operation and the patient does not recover, as he should. Hawkeye begins to doubt his ability and moves out of The Swamp. He decides to open up his patients again, and discovers a nick in the colon that even Frank admits anyone could have missed.
Episode 12: Dear Dad
Hawkeye writes home, describing Christmas in Korea: Radar ships a jeep home, a piece at a time; Henry gives the monthly lecture on sex, with the aid of figure A and figure B; Trapper helps deliver a calf; Klinger and Frank get into a fight, but Father Mulcahy smoothes things over; Hawkeye and Trapper sabotage Margaret's tent; Hawkeye flies to the front line dressed as Santa, to help a wounded soldier.
Episode 22: Major Fred C. Dobbs
As usual Frank's normal drone of verbal abuse upsets Ginger, so Hawkeye puts his arm in a cast while he is asleep. Frank puts in for a transfer, and after a broadcast goes out of Frank telling Margaret he's leaving, she decides to leave as well. As a result, Col. Blake puts both Hawk and Trap on double post-op duty until he finds replacements for Majs. Burns and Houlihan.
Unwilling to lose their two favorite patsies, and to be worn to a frazzle from doing 2 shifts in O/R, Hawkeye and Trapper hatch a scheme to prevent Frank and Hot Lips from leaving. That night, Hawkeye and Trapper pretend they have found gold, letting Frank overhear them. Frank then withdraws his request when he thinks he's found gold himself, although the joke is on him when he finds, amongst other things, a gilded jeep!
Episode 11: Germ Warfare
Hawkeye moves a wounded North Korean soldier into The Swamp, rather than let him be shipped out before he's stable. During the night he and Trapper play Dracula, and siphon off a pint of Frank's blood. The soldier then contracts hepatitis, so they have to test Frank without him knowing, and have to keep him away from Margaret and the patients.
Episode 23: Ceasefire
General Clayton calls to say that a ceasefire is to be declared. The camp celebrates, Klinger gives away his dresses and locals start to take pieces of the camp. But Trapper does not believe it. Hawkeye claims he is married to avoid promises he made to several nurses. The party to celebrate the cease-fire, which never really took place, is interrupted by incoming wounded.