MASH 4077th - Charles Emerson Winchester

Dear Dad,

I have recently been thinking of Charles Emerson Winchester III. While in Korea there were several times that the true decency and humanity shown through his rather blue-blooded and pristine exterior. Charles once related to me that the relationship between his father and himself was to a certain extent cold and cordial. Thinking of you Dad I can see with moist eyes and a heart filled with love that I had the best father, giving, understanding, and ever conscious and aware of my needs. Now in my seventies, I have never married. There were many opportunities, I won't lie and say that there were not. But maybe some of us are meant to be alone, like you for instance. Much to my surprise Charles married immediately after returning to Boston retired from the medical profession and spent his remaining years up until this last autumn, engaged in philanthropic activities. I guess the experience that I have struggled with for many years seemed to escape Charles' thick skin and let itself loose into the world. B. J. is still alive and living in Montana where he operates a clinic that is specializing in the treatment of battered women. His wife Peg died of cancer a few years ago. My two bunkmates from the swamp, the two men that I spent the most time with in Korea are always in my heart. They both wrote me constantly, and of course there were visits periodically, but nothing much. We were scared, lonely people thrown together in an insane situation and deposited back into the waters of a battered coast and told we were no longer needed.
Dad, there are just some things about that war I cannot explain. Some things that even now swell with disease and cover my eyes in a dark and dense shroud that Dante would have left out for the milkman to drop to the ground. Bleeding from the shards I am forever your son and merchant to my dreams, your loving son,
Hawkeye