Chapter 7 Summary

Each MASH tent has a young Korean attendant called a houseboy. The Swamp therefore has "Swampboy" or Ho-Jon, a tall, bright, Christian and relatively English-capable Korean. He thinks the world of Hawkeye, Duke and Trapper and spends a lot of his spare time in the tent learning. He even trains as a scrub nurse with them. However, at seventeen he is drafted into the South Korean army. The doctors are depressed; Hawkeye drives him to Seoul and thinks he will never see him again.

However, Ho-Jon returns to the 4077th with a mortal fragment in his chest. Hawkeye and McIntyre operate and remove a lot of the fragment but a shard is left in Ho-Jon's pulmonary artery. He recovers but will need further surgery. During the surgery, Trapper removes Ho-Jon's fifth rib and finds the shard, removes it and closes him up. Ho-Jon...