What Deaf People May Not Know About M.A.S.H. and Klinger

The show M.A.S.H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) was a long time favorite of mine. Now, what surprises me is that do they know that Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger’s dressing in women’s clothing was never about his sexuality? Dressing in women’s garbs was among the many things he attempted to do in order to get a “Section-8,” which is a “Psycho Discharge.” Getting a “Section-8” paper would be his ticket home from the Korean war. The Korean war was a terrible war and some would do anything to get out of this war. The “Section-8” comedy was a well known fact in the MASH program. I watched it all the time growing up, never needing a Closed Caption when I listened to the show. Now, I’m surprised to see some Deafies thinking Corporal Klinger’s dressing in women’s garb was all about his sexuality.

I thought it was ironic that in that show, everyone accepted Maxwell Q. Klinger's sexuality and he did his job. He was a drag queen ...always dressed as woman all the time but nobody cared

You see, nobody cared because everybody knew he was constantly trying to get a “Section-8” to get out of the Korean War. Everybody knew that Klinger was trying to get a "Section -8" (except for a few clueless ones who now says "Oh, yeah, I knew that." That's called "back-peddling" after making the above statement).

And now you know why so many of them ignored many of Klinger’s comical attempts to get a “Section-8.” This was a 70s show and it wasn’t about addressing sexuality issues of the same sex. It was all about comedy, and the tragedy of a war. Common sense ought to tell you that it was about the looniness of Klinger's attempts in order to get discharge papers from the MASH unit a trip back home.

The commanders largely tolerated his antics because they were entertaining and Klinger was otherwise a conscientious and reliable orderly who made a point of never letting his schemes interfere with his work.

Eventually, Klinger gave up wearing women's clothing, a change demanded by Farr because he felt his children would be ashamed of him for appearing in women's clothing week after week on national television. He took over Radar O'Reilly's job of company clerk with reasonable seriousness, eventually getting promoted to Sergeant.

At the end of the series, Klinger had fallen in love and married a native Korean woman, Soon Lee, and decided to stay in Korea to search for her relatives, although he returned to the United States in the short-lived spin-off to the series called "After M*A*S*H.

Corp. Klinger would do just about anything, including dressing up in women’s clothings. All for laughs…and not about questioning sexuality for those who are clueless in these things. The show had an anti-war message and the hellish reality of the M*A*S*H units encouraged Corp. Klinger's behavior out of sheer desperate need for something to laugh at.

Listen and learn here.

Let’s list the stunts that he pulled over the years on MASH in order toconvince everyone that he was crazy and get that Section-8 he always wanted (courtesy of MASH faqs :

- Wearing women's clothings.
- Eating a jeep, part by part.
- Soaring away on a hang-glider, looking like "a big red bird with fuzzy pink feet".
- Loving the army, and then flipping back to being Queen of the Nile.
- Carrying Radar's Teddy Bear.
- Dressing as a nun.
- Escaping in an inflatable rubber raft.
- Various combinations of family members pregnant/dying appeal letters.
- Riding Sophie through the camp (a la Lady Godiva) after he thought he had reenlisted.
- Trying to fatten up in order to exceed the Army's weight limit.
- Threatening to torch himself (with water) but ended up with "Who put gasoline in my 'gasoline'?!"
- Doing guard duty naked while a General was on site.
- During a heat wave he dressed in a rubber reducing suit and fur coat.
- Pole sitting in freezing weather (and broke a world record in the process)
- Dressing up as an old Korean peasant woman.
- Running outside Post-Op in his underwear, trying to get pneumonia. - Trying to convince the doctors that he had some mysterious malady.
- Trying to get into West Point.
- Trying to join the Navy.
- Becoming "Zoltan, king of the gypsies". - Fainting spells.
- Hearing loss. He actually lost his hearing in this episode. But when his hearing came back, the first thing he heard was that it would have been his ticket home.

- Pretending he was back in Toledo as a civilian.
- Bravery (volunteering for dangerous mission in "Rainbow Bridge").
- Passing himself off as being pregnant.
- Taking care of an imaginary camel.
- Hardship discharge because of his many "children" (he got the pictures from Potter and others).
- Sending love letters to Generals, usually accompanied by a revealing photo of himself.
- Dressing up as Moses.
- Practicing voodoo on Potter with a voodoo doll and dead chicken.
- Confessing to be a serial killer who strangled female motorcycle cops. - Attempting to bribe Potter into giving him a Section-8.
- Attempting to forge his own discharge papers.
- Displaying himself as the Statue of Liberty for General MacArthur.
- Disguising himself as a bush (a plant).
- Stowing away in a mail bag.

Deaf people need to catch up on the Closed Captioning of MASH to understand why Corp. Maxwell Klinger was dressing in women’s garbs. It’s called a “Section-8.” If you can prove that you’re crazy, you get an official discharge to go home. That’s what made MASH so enjoyable and funny to watch. You never know what Klinger would do next to get that coveted “Section-8.”