Porterville man's character 'featured' in MASH

A Porterville veteran who served in World War II and was awarded the Silver Star during the Korean War, had a popular, 1970’s television show based on the medical unit he served with while in Korea.

Don Zollinger, 92, who joined the U.S. Army in 1941 at age 21 and served in World War II and Korea, was stationed with the No. 8055 Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in South Korea with Richard Hooker, the author of “MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors.”

Hooker wrote the novel that later was turned into a feature film and television series — “M*A*S*H” — that ran from 1972 to 1983.

In the television series, the story is set in the 4077th MASH unit in Uijeongbu, South Korea.
“I wasn’t a surgeon. I was a captain — the executive officer in charge of the administration part of the place,” Zollinger said. “My boss was the colonel in charge of surgery.”

Still, one of the show’s main characters — Hawkeye Pierce, played by Alan Alda in the series — had many of Zollinger’s characteristics.

“A lot of it was embellished,” Zollinger said.

When the movie was first released, Zollinger said he did not want to go see it and was forced to go by an Army buddy.

“I liked it,” Zollinger admitted. “I eventually watched some of the episodes and I could see a lot of incidents that they picked up, played with and embellished.”

Radar, the company clerk, was also based on someone in his unit, Zollinger said.

“A lot of it was made up but most of it was true — he was a real character,” Zollinger said. “We never had a crossdresser — that part was completely fabricated for laughs. We didn’t have anyone resembling Klinger.”

Zollinger’s wife of almost 70 years, Millie Zollinger, said she has also been assured, again and again, that there was no “Hot Lips” nurse character either.

“Our charge nurse was 56 years old and was more of a mother to all of us,” Don Zollinger said. “‘Hot Lips’ on the other hand was quite friendly and could talk men into anything. We definitely didn’t have anyone like that.”

Another difference is the placement of the village to the MASH tents, Zollinger said.
“In the series there is a little village next to our mobile hospital and there is a lot of interaction with the Koreans. That didn’t happen,” Zollinger said. “We were about 40 miles north of Seoul and about 30 miles north of the Army headquarters for South Korea’s stay back line. There was no village and no bar anywhere near us.”

The only bar was the one they made themselves, Zollinger said.

“Tent No. 5 was the swap tent — where we gathered for drinks but there was no one there making us drinks,” Zollinger said. “We had a coffee pot and sometimes we would add Vermouth and make ourselves a dry martini.”

Some of the incidents he can pick from the series that did occur include a baseball game.
“We cleared a ball field and played baseball there,” Zollinger said. “By the time the baseball season ended, it was overgrowing with weeds all around. So I told the boys, lets clean it up. And while we did, out in left field, a mine went off. Here we had been playing there all along and it never went off.”

Another incident was when he was awakened by his clerk, Cpl. Johns, and informed that there was fighting and shooting in the motor pool.

Zollinger rushed to the site and hid by a bush but when he started to move, the bush rattled.
“I stood really still and the rattling stopped,” Zollinger said. “When I moved, the bush rattled. Turns out I had somehow hooked my belt onto a cable that pulled on the bush and made it rattle. When he pulled on the belt, a shell went off and hit a windshield. In the show it was embellished. There was a lot of gunfire and the Koreans ran from the gun battle. In reality, the only damage was the broken windshield and we caused it. There was a lot of comedy that you could pick out like that.”

Another example was a baby grand piano.

Zollinger said the piano really existed but he has no idea how it found its way into the Officer’s Club.

“One day I went and there it was,” he said. “What I do remember about that Officer’s Club is that we used to drink our drinks from tin cups. One day I saw an ad for some rum in the South Pacific Islands. So I wrote to them and told them ‘We have your whiskey but we have to drink out of tin cans.’ Next thing I know we had trucks of supplies sent from the beer company. They sent us an electric Budweiser clock, champagne glasses, wine glasses, and other drink glasses. We then finagled olives and toothpicks out of the mess hall and made ourselves some nice drinks.”

Zollinger laughed while telling a story of how some French wine was saved because of how it was stored.

“The temperature caused the corks to pop out but there was just enough room above the bottles and the shelves stopped the corks from flying off them,” Zollinger said. “We got lucky.”

Zollinger said he has not seen all of the “M*A*S*H” episodes but has enjoyed them when he watched them.

“I never got anything out of it,” he said. “There was no financial anything for me and that’s fine with me.”

Contact Esther Avila at 784-5000, Ext. 1045, or eavila@portervillerecorder.com.