Corrected entry: When Father Mulcahy is talking to the Champ on his deathbed, he is wearing Captain's bars on his shirt despite being a Lieutenant.
'Twas the Day After Christmas - S10-E9
Corrected entry: The officers are supposed to change places with the enlisted, Nurse Kelly is a Lt, but she supposedly changed places with another officer.
Correction: It seems all of The Nurses were at least Lts. You never met a corporal or private nurse. So to switch, they "promoted" a lower ranking nurse.
Corrected entry: In this episode, Potter and company are being introduced to white phosphorous that is starting to be used. But in Season 2, Episode 1, "Divided We Stand", as Henry and Hawkeye come out of the O.R. a wounded soldier is brought in on a Jeep with white phosphorous burns, and they knew what to do.
Correction: Even if they knew how to deal with it at the time, the information might not have been common knowledge. As WP came to be used more frequently, the Army would send instructors to field hospitals to make certain everyone was up on the latest technique for dealing with it. (Col. Potter was also not in the earlier episode you mention, and he wants to hear the information).
Understood, but Potter was there in Season 4, Episode 24 "Deluge" when a WP case was brought in.
Remember that the main plot of this episode is that Col. Potter made a rookie mistake that almost cost a kid's life, and is fearing that he's too old to hack it as a doctor anymore. If the Army's learned something he doesn't know, he wants to know it.
Correction: "New" to the doctors on the front lines and "new" to the doctors back at HQ could be two different things.
It might be old news to the 4077th but new to the Army in general. Without asking a real Army doctor, Instructional briefings like this aren't optional. They don't ask if you already know it. The point of the scene is NOT "How many times has the 4077th already done this?" The point is "Potter thinks he's too old and can't hack it anymore, so IF the Army has learned something new, HE wants to hear it." And also shows us "Potter is on edge about something. Maybe we should call Sidney Green."
You could be the world's top expert in White Phosphorus, but if you're in the Army, and they tell you "You're going to attend a lecture on White Phosphorus," That's called an order and you do it, Mr. White Phosphorus, whether you like it or not.
Correction: Captain Simmons said the new weapon is "white phosphorus rounds." Phosphorus before then was likely used as part of artillery shells.
Correction: I know you can't worry about MASH's timeline or you'll go insane, but six seasons pass between this episode and that one. The Army medics could have learned some new things about treating the injuries in whatever time passed. And again, Col. Potter thinks he's slipping in this episode, so he wants to hear every word, and that's the main point of the scene.
Corrected entry: When the champ comes in, several soldiers are lying in the post-op ward, and some of them don't look likely to get out soon. After the champ suffers his stroke, the ward is empty and Cavanaugh is the only patient there. Hawkeye even says "Afraid you're going to lose your private room, Champ?" What happened to the other wounded? (00:05:00 - 00:18:45)
Correction: Patients get transferred out all the time. If they knew that they were going to get more wounded in, they would transfer as many as could be feasibly moved. Obviously all could be safely moved.
No mention is made in the dialog of moving wounded out to make room, as it is in many other episodes. The wounded are just suddenly gone. While none is explicitly mentioned as being critical or unable to be transferred (transferring wounded just isn't touched upon at all in this episode), as detailed in the original mistake, some wounded look quite heavily injured, e.g. the guy in the body cast the champ talks to. In other episodes, the doctors show quite a lot of reluctance in moving patients with similar looking injuries.
Correction: They do things all the time without specifically mentioning it. The job of a mash unit is to fix up those in critical need and get them to a recovery/evacuation or their unit as soon as possible.
Correction: He was promoted to Captain in Season 8, Episode 13.
William Bergquist