The morning mist clung to the Korean mountains like a wet blanket. At exactly 0600 hours, a heavily armored jeep rumbled into the 4077th compound, splashing mud onto the pristine white sign that read “Best Care Anywhere.”

A Sergeant, built like a brick wall and bearing a facial scar that suggested he ate gravel for breakfast, stepped out. He marched into the clerk’s office and slammed a transfer manifest onto Radar’s desk.

“I’m here for Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger,” the Sergeant growled. “Got orders to drag him to Heartbreak Ridge. We need bodies.”

Radar swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Uh, yes sir. He’s… he’s getting ready.”

Inside the Swamp, Hawkeye and B.J. were frantically trying to execute Plan C.

“Okay, Klinger, listen to me,” Hawkeye said, holding a syringe filled with a harmless saline solution. “I can inject this into your leg. It’ll swell up like a balloon. We’ll call it Lebanese Swamp Fever. Potter will have to quarantine you.”

Klinger, sitting on his cot in his standard-issue uniform, stared at the floor. His duffel bag was packed. “It won’t work, Cap’n. Frank will just say I injected myself. They’ll shoot me for sabotage instead of sending me to the front. It’s over.”

B.J. put a hand on Klinger’s shoulder. “Max, you can’t go out there. You’re a clerk. You’re a procurement genius. You’re our friend. You wouldn’t last five minutes in a trench.”

Klinger looked up, his eyes wet. He looked at Hawkeye’s makeshift still, at the ratty canvas walls, at the mud caked on the floorboards. For two years, he had tried everything to escape this lunatic asylum. He had eaten a jeep, piece by piece. He had worn every dress in the Sears Roebuck catalog. He had faked pregnancies, visions, and religious awakenings.

All he wanted was to leave.

But as he looked out the tent flap at the gruff Sergeant waiting to take him to the real, bloody, unforgiving war, a strange realization washed over him. The 4077th wasn’t just a prison. It was a sanctuary of madness that kept the true horror of the war at bay. Hawkeye, B.J., Potter, Radar… they weren’t just inmates. They were his family.

If he left, he wasn’t just going to die. He was abandoning them.

“No,” Klinger whispered.

“No, what?” Hawkeye asked.

“No saline. No faking sick.” Klinger stood up, his eyes blazing with a sudden, fierce determination. He walked over to his footlocker and kicked it open. “If the Army wants me to go to the front, they’re going to have to take all of me.”

Ten minutes later, the Sergeant in the courtyard checked his watch and yelled, “Let’s go, Corporal! I ain’t got all day!”

The flap of the Swamp tent parted. The camp fell dead silent.

Out stepped Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger. He was a vision in white. He wore a magnificent, floor-length bridal gown, complete with a lace bodice, a voluminous hoop skirt, and a sweetheart neckline that highlighted the thick, dark hair on his chest. On his feet were heavy, mud-caked combat boots. On his head sat a standard steel M1 combat helmet, over which he had draped an elegant, floor-length bridal veil. He clutched a bouquet of dead, muddy weeds.

He didn’t walk; he glided. He marched straight up to the terrifying Infantry Sergeant, fluttered his eyelashes, and curtsied.

“Corporal Klinger, reporting for duty, Sergeant,” Klinger said in a deep, booming baritone. “I hope the trenches aren’t too muddy, I’d hate to ruin my train. Shall we honeymoon in Pyongyang?”

The Sergeant stared at Klinger. His jaw slowly dropped. He looked at the hairy chest, the wedding dress, the combat boots, and the utterly serious expression on Klinger’s face.

Frank Burns ran out of his tent. “Sergeant! Grab him! He’s faking! He’s perfectly sane!”

The Sergeant slowly turned to Frank, then back to Klinger, who was currently trying to fluff his veil.

“Major,” the Sergeant said slowly, pointing a trembling, calloused finger at Klinger. “I am going to a combat zone where people are shooting real bullets. I am not taking the bride of Frankenstein with me.”

“But his orders!” Frank shrieked. “He’s transferred! He was only a one-week temp!”

“I don’t care if he’s the Queen of England,” the Sergeant spat, grabbing the transfer orders from Frank’s hand and tearing them into tiny pieces. “He steps in my jeep, my men will shoot him just for the fashion violation. You keep your lunatics, Major. We have enough problems at the front.”

The Sergeant climbed into his jeep, slammed it into gear, and peeled out of the compound, spraying mud all over Frank’s boots.

A heavy silence lingered over the camp.

Colonel Potter walked out of his office, stepping over the torn pieces of Klinger’s transfer orders. He looked at Klinger in the wedding dress. He looked at Frank, who was vibrating with rage. He looked at Hawkeye and B.J., who were trying desperately not to laugh.

“Well, Klinger,” Potter said dryly. “It appears your ride left without you. Since your transfer orders are now confetti, and you have no official status… I am officially drafting you into the 4077th. Permanently.”

Klinger lifted his veil. “Permanently, sir?”

“Until this stupid war ends, son,” Potter smiled gently. “Now go change. That white is blinding me, and it’s practically begging for a sniper.”

“Yes, sir!” Klinger beamed, executing a perfect, albeit rustling, salute.

As Klinger strutted back to the Swamp, his hoop skirt swaying, Hawkeye turned to B.J.

“You know, Beej,” Hawkeye mused. “He came here as a one-episode clerical error. A transient. A nobody.”

B.J. smiled, watching Klinger trip slightly over his hem and curse in Arabic. “And now?”

“Now,” Hawkeye said, raising an imaginary glass. “Now, he’s a legend.”