HAWKEYE PIERCE, dressed in a blood-stained doctor's smock, sits at one of the wooden picnic benches, drinking some lukewarm coffee. In walks MARGARET "HOT LIPS" HOULIHAN, nurse, who sits down on the bench across from him.
HOT LIPS. Captain Pierce, may I join you?
HAWKEYE. You already joined me, gorgeous. You're a sight for sore eyes. Where do you come from?
HOT LIPS. Well, I like to think of the army as my home.
HAWKEYE. Oh, yeah? (to Korean boy) Ho-Jon, you bring me some ketchup, will you?
HOT LIPS. Captain, I've been observing the nurses on your shift.
HAWKEYE. Yeah, I know. I saw ya.
HOT LIPS. Naturally your own opinion is more informed than mine.
HAWKEYE. And you would like to know what I think of the nurses on my shift. Well, I'll tell you. I think they're fine. I think they're just great.
HOT LIPS. Well, Major Burns is far from satisfied.
HAWKEYE. That doesn't surprise me. Frank Burns does not know his way around an operating theater, he does not know his way around a body, and if you had observed anything, you would have observed that Major Frank Burns is an idiot. That he's flipped his wig. That he's out of his head. That he's a lousy surgeon.
HOT LIPS. (indignant) Oh, on the contrary. I have observed that Major Burns is not only a good technical surgeon, he is also a good military surgeon.
HAWKEYE. Finished?
HOT LIPS. I've also noticed that nurses as well as enlisted men address you as 'Hawkeye.'
HAWKEYE. Yeah, because that's my name. Hawkeye Pierce.
HOT LIPS. Well, that kind of informality is inconsistent with maximum officiancy in a military organization.
HAWKEYE. Oh, come off it, Major! You put me right off my fresh fried lobster, do you realize that? I'm going back to my bed, I'm going to put away the best bite of a bottle of scotch. And under normal circumstances,you being what I would normally call a very attractive woman, I would have invited you back to share my little bed with me, and you might possibly have come.
Hot Lips is shocked.
HAWKEYE. But you really put me off. I mean, you're what we call a regular army clown.
He gets up and storms out of the mess tent, leaving a flustered Hot Lips to turn to the chaplain, FATHER MULCAHY, with an indignant look.
HOT LIPS. I wonder how a degenerated person like that could've reach a position of responsibility in the army medical corps!
MULCAHY. He was drafted.