Chapter 1 Summary

Radar O'Reilly has just graduated high school when he joins the United States Army to join the Signal Corps. He has the extraordinary ability to receive messages and monitor conversations far beyond the ordinary hearing abilities of humans. He seems natural for communications. In 1951, November, he is a corporal in the US Army Medical Corps, sitting in the Poker and Dental Clinic of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital near the 38th Parallel in South Korea and playing poker while listening to a phone conversation between General Hammond and Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, the commanding office of the 4077th. Blake is demanding that the general send him the two best surgeons he has. He is successful.

Ten days later, Captains Augustus Forrest and Benjamin Franklin Pierce arrive. Pierce is twenty-eight, Captain Forrest a year older. On the way to the 4077th, the two...