- Pierce is upset by the fact that civilian doctors are making a lot of money off the war, and decides to bill the army for all his work. Meanwhile, Winchester is reluctantly showing 3 Korean doctors American medical techniques, putting them down all the while, until he is on the receiving end of their expertise.—Kathy Hofmann
- Pierce is upset by the fact that civilian doctors are making a lot of money off the war (His dad writes to Hawkeye that a doctor in their town is making $2000 a day just by charging $5 per x-ray for selective x-rays), and decides to bill the army for all his work. These civilian doctors are charging the army top dollar for their minimal services (while claiming to having given up their private patients and their golf game), while Hawkeye is being minimum wages for being great!!.. Hawkeye cannot believe that the 2 sets of surgeons are being paid by the same army.
Hawkeye gets Klinger to pull out all the files and determines all surgical procedures he has performed till date in service of the army (546 bowl resections and so on). The total comes to $38,215.11. Criminal Investigation department sends a captain Snyder (Richard Herd) to MASH 4077 to investigate. Hawkeye insists that each of his charges are verified and very reasonable due to his low overhead. He starts with a case of fraud, but eventually figures that is hot-headed, self righteous non-sense. He tears the bill in his face and walks away. Hawkeye is livid and is determine to extract his pound of flesh.
Meanwhile, Winchester is reluctantly (winchester didn't want to take the assignment, but Potter as CO and Hawkeye as Chief Surgeon force him to do it) showing 3 Korean doctors American medical techniques, putting them down all the while. The suggests that Koreans burn incense and dance around the patient, instead of doing scientific surgery on them. The doctors claim that they are Buddhists and have never cut into a living being as their religion forbids it. Winchester has a cramp in his back that he cant get rid of. Houlihan puts warm towels on his back, but they don't provide any relief. Winchester says only rest will cure his back.
Hawkeye asks the visiting Koreans to see how they collect if the patient doesn't pay for services rendered. They say they can take farm animals as fair payment. So, Hawkeye takes a jeep from the motor pool as partial payment for services rendered (The Govt still owes him $36,005). Potter allows Hawkeye to keep the jeep temporarily to avoid any more complications with CID, but warns him. The Koreans offer to fix Winchester's back (their treatment is over 3000 yrs old), but he shoos them away, calling them primitives.. as casualties approach Potter overrides Winchester and allows the Koreans to perform acupuncture on Winchester. Winchester is cured.
The CID man returns as Hawkeye has filed a receipt for the jeep via Rizzo (who was in charge of the motor pool the night he took the jeep). Potter has them in their office to argue and reach a conclusion. Meanwhile someone steals the CID captain's jeep. He thinks this was Hawkeye's doing to make him look like a fool. He attacks Hawkeye, but ends up damaging his foot. Hawkeye charges him $4 for the x-ray and agrees to return the 2 jeeps. BJ had stolen his jeep :)
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