The Operating Room of the 4077th was a chaotic symphony of blood, sweat, and screaming steam from the autoclave. Hawkeye was elbow-deep in a shrapnel wound, barking orders at the nurses. Across the room, Margaret Houlihan was snapping clamps into Major Charles Emerson Winchester III’s hand faster than the eye could follow.

But the real crisis wasn’t on the tables. It was standing by the door.

Major Sidney Freedman, scrubbed up and masked, was holding a clipboard, intercepting litter bearers before they could even get the wounded to the pre-op staging area.

“Name?” Sidney asked a bleeding corporal on a stretcher.

“Smith, sir… took one in the shoulder,” the kid groaned.

“Does it hurt, Smith?” Sidney asked calmly.

“Like hell, sir.”

Sidney clicked his pen. “Severe psychological trauma resulting in phantom limb pain and debilitating anxiety. Congratulations, son. I’m stamping you ‘Section 8’—unfit for duty. Nurse, put a tag on him. He goes to Tokyo on the next bird, no combat return.”

“Major Freedman!” Margaret shrieked from across the OR, nearly dropping a sponge. “What are you doing? You can’t discharge a man before we’ve even operated!”

“I’m practicing preventative medicine, Major Houlihan,” Sidney yelled back over the din. “I’m removing them from the disease. The disease is called ‘Commanding Generals with stars in their eyes and rocks in their heads.'”

Hawkeye looked up from his patient, wiping sweat from his forehead with his shoulder. “Sidney, buddy, as much as I admire your sudden conversion to the church of draft-dodging, you’re going to get yourself court-martialed!”

“Let them try, Pierce!” Sidney shouted, moving to the next stretcher. “Are you scared of loud noises, private? Yes? Excellent. Section 8. Unfit for combat.”

It took Colonel Sherman T. Potter exactly four minutes to stomp down from his office, part the sea of doctors and nurses, and grab Sidney by the elbow, dragging him out of the OR and into the brisk Korean air.

Ten minutes later, Hawkeye and BJ were summoned to Potter’s office.

Potter was sitting behind his desk, rubbing his temples furiously. Sidney was sitting in the corner, staring blankly at a painting of Potter’s horse, Sophie.

“Horse hockey. Absolute, unadulterated horse hockey,” Potter grumbled, looking at the two surgeons. “I have a psychiatrist out there handing out Section 8s like they’re Cracker Jack prizes. He just diagnosed a kid with a sprained ankle as a ‘paranoid schizophrenic with a severe allergy to incoming artillery’.”

“To be fair, Colonel,” Hawkeye chimed in, “an allergy to artillery is a highly rational medical condition.”

“Zip it, Pierce,” Potter warned. “I got off the horn with General Bradley’s office. They heard Freedman was here. They want him back in Seoul by tomorrow morning to continue his ‘evaluations.’ And if they find out he’s been mass-discharging men under false psychological pretenses, they won’t just fire him. They’ll send him to Leavenworth to make license plates for the rest of his natural-born life.”

BJ looked at Sidney, who was completely silent. “Colonel, he’s broken. The new directives… they made him send men back to die. He’s suffering from the exact combat fatigue he’s trying to treat.”

Potter sighed, his face softening. The old cavalry man had seen his share of broken minds over three wars. “I know. I see it. But I can’t just hide a Major. Command wants him.”

Hawkeye’s eyes suddenly lit up. A dangerous, familiar glint appeared. “Colonel. Command wants a psychiatrist who is fit for duty. They can’t use him to evaluate soldiers if he’s clinically insane.”

Potter raised an eyebrow. “Pierce, what are you brewing in that twisted distillery of a brain?”

“Frank Burns,” Hawkeye said simply. “Frank has been writing up reports on all of us for years, claiming we’re insane. What if Frank—the most military-minded, rule-abiding officer in camp—files an official, urgent psychiatric report to Seoul, claiming that Dr. Sidney Freedman has completely snapped and is a danger to himself and others?”

“Burns would never help us,” BJ pointed out.

“He won’t know he’s helping us,” Hawkeye grinned. “He wants to destroy Sidney for being a ‘coddling shrink.’ If we can make Sidney act so incredibly, undeniably unhinged in front of Frank, Frank will sprint to the telegraph office to report him. Seoul will have to recall Sidney not for duty, but for a medical discharge. He gets to go home. He’s safe.”

Potter looked at Sidney, then at Hawkeye. “It’s insubordination. It’s fraud. It’s an insult to the uniform.” The Colonel paused, a slight smile tugging at his mustache. “So, how crazy does he need to act?”

Hawkeye walked over to Sidney and put a hand on his shoulder. “Sidney? You want to go home?”

Sidney slowly turned his head. “I want to stop sending boys to the grave.”

“Then we need you to put on the performance of a lifetime,” Hawkeye said. “We need you to be crazier than Klinger on half-price dress day at Macy’s. Can you do it?”

Sidney Freedman blinked. A tiny, familiar spark of his old wry humor flickered in his eyes.

“Gentlemen,” Sidney said softly. “Take my advice… pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”

The trap was set. But none of them realized that Major Margaret Houlihan had been listening through the thin canvas wall of Potter’s office. And she had her own strict ideas about duty to the United States Army.

As Hawkeye and BJ left the office to brief Klinger on the plan, Margaret stepped out of the shadows, her eyes narrowing as she headed straight for Frank Burns’ tent…