I was stationed at Stanton Army Airfield in the DMZ of South Korea from 1970 to '71. I just looked it up and MASH was released March 1970 but it played at Camp Howze in January 1971, that's where I saw the film. It was very easy to relate to the story because our situation wasn't a whole lot different. We weren't at war, the real war was going on a 1000 miles south in Vietnam, so we were the sort of forgotten country and pot was just beginning to make the rounds throughout the camp. My unit was mostly helicopter pilots, mechanics, weather men and controllers like myself. The Koreans did all the real soldering, such as gate guard, perimeter guards, the mess hall, orderly room, anything was didn't involve aviation the KATUSA's perfomed (Koreans Assigned to The US Army).
It was cold as hell, I remember snow was on the ground when I saw the film and when I came out of the theater there were about 3 or 4 cabs waiting and a couple of the drivers started fighting over who would get the ride. All the locals either worked in support of the base, whether houseboys, cab drivers, prostitutes, etc, we were the economy.
I loved that film, have seen it again and again so many times. I couldn't stand watching the TV show, Alan Alda as Hawkeye was a horrible choice, the original colonel, the dentist, everybody was so much better in the film, I never could understand the popularity of the TV show. Anyway, I loved the film and the director Robert Altman who is dead now, made another excellent film about the backstabbing of Hollywood, it was called The Player and came out about 1990, it's really worth seeing.
Camp Howze South Korea - 2nd Division
