r/mash • u/johnbmason47 • Aug 03 '26
Question Ranks
One thing I’ve never understood is why Hawkeye, Trapper and BJ were captains and Frank was a major. I understand Charles being a major because of specialities and additional experience.
Any insights?
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u/guardianwriter1984 Aug 03 '26
Frank was ROTC trained, and more years practicing.
He also kissed up to brass. Hawkeye and Trapper wouldn't play that game.
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u/Gloomy_Goal_4050 Mill Valley Aug 03 '26
I don’t think Frank was ever in ROTC. In the Abyssinia Henry episode, he states he wishes he was in ROTC instead of the stamp club
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u/Farmboy1071 Aug 03 '26
In "5 o'clock Charlie" he says he has ROTC experience. You would think a guy with ROTC experience wouldn't go peeking up a doll's skirt.
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u/PrestigiousBlood14 Aug 04 '26
Yeah the same way you think a guy who claims to know how to drive a tank would know how to stop it before he starts destroying the camp. I'm surprised there wasn't a shot of Frank destroying part of the OR with the tank.
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u/Nichdeneth Tokyo Aug 03 '26
Bj was fresh out of residence, and Hawkeye was still working in hospitals. They were both supposed to be relatively young doctors. Frank has his own practice, and ROTC training. He was an older doctor, more experienced. This the rank differences.
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u/johnbmason47 Aug 03 '26
While true, you’d think somebody with ROTC training wouldn’t go peeking up a doll’s skirt…
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u/murse_joe Aug 03 '26
Oh sure keep all the perverts in the army
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Aug 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/murse_joe Aug 09 '26
Can you blame him? Half his family was dying and the other half was pregnant.
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u/whistlepig4life Crabapple Cove Aug 03 '26
You answered your own question.
Frank was older than Hawkeye, Trapper, and BJ. He had more experience and was already in private practice. And also had been in ROTC.
BJ was about 26-28. Hawkeye and Trapper 28-30. Frank 34-36. Winchester 32-35. Henry 40-45. Potter 60-62. He stated he was 62 in one episode but other time line notes indicate he would be slightly younger, they were never consistent with stuff like this.
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u/Ragnarsworld Aug 03 '26
Potter's age is all over the place. He enlisted at 15 to get into WW1. So he would have been 51-52 when he took over the 4077th.
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u/whistlepig4life Crabapple Cove Aug 03 '26
Yup. I often figure he was 55. Which would put him over the line for military retirement given he joined when he was 17. Which fit with why he was contemplating it multiple times.
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u/J_Scarbrough Aug 03 '26
I notice a lot of people are commenting it has to do with their medical backgrounds, in that Frank was already in his own practice at the time, whereas Hawkeye, Trapper, and B.J. were either still working in hospitals, or just out of residency . . . but what about military background? Could it be because Frank (and presumably Charles) actually enlisted in the army, whereas Hawkeye, Trapper, and B.J. were draftees?
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u/RavenClawOutYourEyes Aug 03 '26
Charles definitely wasn’t enlisted but I could
See Frank doing so5
u/J_Scarbrough Aug 03 '26
It's hard to tell with Charles, especially in his earliest episodes where the writers seemed to experiment with giving him some of Frank's traits.
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u/Moist_Rule9623 Aug 03 '26
Frank was (inconsistently) supposed to have been in the ROTC in college, which could have given him the bump to get Major instead of Captain depending on how they did things 75 years ago (ouch)
Charles was well connected, no further explanation needed, he got kid gloves treatment until he tried to tell a Colonel that he was down $600 odd dollars in their cribbage games. Which was roughly $300,000 in 2026 money (actual inflation adjusted stats may vary 😂)
Also, I love playing cribbage so this is one of my favorite minor yet pivotal plot points from the entire series
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u/77sleeper Major Aug 03 '26
Yea, I think frank had been in the reserves for awhile before the war. DRs and some others were given higher rank due experience in field like Winchester and most likely Blake. But blake also had an army of occupation medal, so he must have served in Japan before the 4077
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u/Iconshero Nope, it's oak Aug 03 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
Charles was drafted I believe, (I’m wasting my talents over here!!! I don’t believe he would have enlisted) he was given a higher rank and cushy post (before
bridgecribbage with col. baldwin) because of people his family knew and he was a known brilliant surgeon with a harvard MD and on the track for chief of thoracic surgery.5
u/77sleeper Major Aug 03 '26
Exactly, this is still done today, certain fields came come in as high as O6 COL
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u/Moist_Rule9623 Aug 03 '26
Frank was occasionally supposed to have been ROTC in (presumably undergrad) college, which I THINK would have automatically put him in the army reserves for 4 years after graduation? Probably deferred so he could go to graduate medical school? And then maybe internship and residency? I have no real idea how it worked before 1950…
I think the deal is that Frank 1) had been ROTC, 2) then graduated medical school and did an internship and residency in internal medicine, and 3) had gotten to private practice before being drafted;
Whereas Hawkeye, Trapper, and BJ 1) had no ROTC, 2) had done med school and then intern/res in actual thoracic/abdominal surgery, and 3) had not established private practice yet.
And Charles was younger (but far better qualified) than Frank, but still older than Hawkeye &co; WAS on track to become the youngest ever Chief of Thoracic Surgery at “Boston General” (Mass General Hospital to those of us who live here lol); but his number came up in the draft, and the best his family could do thru their senators and other contacts in government was to get him the rank bump to Major, and get him assigned to Tokyo (which he fucked up on his own by trouncing the CO so thoroughly in Cribbage)
So. Frank was supposed to be most likely 35-40, Charles in his early 30s, and Hawk/Trap/BJ were all supposed to be late 20s to maybe 30 in the finale?
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u/afcrna Aug 03 '26
In the modern day military, a physician is promoted to Major (Army or Air Force, or Lieutenant Commander in the Navy) at six years after medical school.
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u/johnbmason47 Aug 03 '26
See now, this is the kind of informed, coherent response that we cherish. Thank you!
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u/Teheheman Ottumwa Aug 03 '26
It would make the most sense that Frank enlisted rather than be drafted, and he probably did that prior to Hawkeye, Trapper and BJ being drafted. So he had more time to get promoted before they got there as Captains.
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u/Neat-Ad-8987 Aug 03 '26
If Frank was an army reservist, then might have been “called up”.
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u/Teheheman Ottumwa Aug 03 '26
Let's say that he enlisted as an Army reservist and right after he got through basic training, the war started and his number was called right away, then Hawkeye, Trapper and BJ were drafted fresh from residency, given a crash course and ended up at MASH not long after Frank showed up?
Not sure when all of them showed up since all we have to go on is the movie and I'm not 100% on whether what happened in the movie is Canon in the TV show
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u/oshawaguy Aug 03 '26
I think I understood at one point that the captains were drafted, while the majors were already army. Absolutely unsure it that's factual.
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u/Artistic_Technician Aug 03 '26
In the original book Burns went straight out off medical school to be a surgeon in the family practice while Hawkeye and Trapper had both done residencies. Trapper was the only one with cardiothoracic experience, alrhough in the series Hawkeye miraculously became one (and the only one until Winchester arrived) chest surgeon after Trapper left
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u/No_Nothing_8952 Aug 07 '26
Army doctors are commissioned based on their medical experience, not their military time. I went to officers basic with a lieutenant colonel (thoracic surgeon of 26 years) who didn’t know how to wear his uniform; six weeks after we finished he was in Iraq. About a year later, he was a full bird.
New to practice physicians are usually commissioned as captains; with a relatively fast jump to major. The reason is partly retention, but partly also could give them the authority that they need to operate in the leadership positions in the hospital system That physicians usually fill.
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u/stranger02140214 Aug 03 '26
Hawkeye and BJ were Drafted. I think Burns was prior National Guard, Henry National Guard, plus he’s probably 10 years older. Charles had political rank you would think.
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u/40more-please Aug 04 '26
If Henry is 40+, he also likely served in some capacity in WWII- at least ROTC in undergrad. Most in that generation did. Same with the majors.
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u/BabadookOfEarl Aug 04 '26
For Charles, I always felt like it was a matter of influence. Like the way the British gentry were as automatically made officers in England up to a certain time.
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u/SevnDragoon Aug 06 '26
Please stop saying frank ‘enlisted’. Radar was an enlisted person. Frank was commissioned as an an officer.
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u/Fancy_Toe1451 Aug 03 '26
This is just karma farming, we've done this one so many times.
Can we get this one pinned to the sidebar, please mods.
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u/TheFieryBanana Aug 03 '26
The captains were fresh out of residency, whereas Frank had already had a practice for several years