Work Text:
Iowa is different than he remembers.
The first week, he drags a blanket out to the barn to sleep because he's gotten used to the noise, the smell, and the little clapboard house where he's spent most of his life is suddenly too quiet. His mother looks at him a little funny when he comes in for breakfast but doesn't say anything. Just kisses the top of his head and whispers 'praise the lord' like she's done since the day he met her at the bus station, Korean dust still ground into his skin.
No one tells you what it feels like being back, he thinks. Being home. The one thing all of them want, and now he's got it, right here, good ole American dirt right under his feet. He's seen hundreds, probably thousands, of guys get shipped to the states from the 4077. None of them have ever come back that he knows of, so he never had anyone to ask. He wonders what they woulda said if he'd had the chance.
He takes over all the jobs Uncle Ed's done for years: running the rows for the wheat and corn, haggling with Mr. Widdell down the road about the price of winter feed for the cows, trading out work with a couple others in town when he needs extra hands come harvest-time. A farm is hard work, but sometimes it's almost too easy. There aren't sniper bullets pinging through the office or a post-op full of kids barely as old as he is bleeding and puking and needing penicillin that nobody in supply wants to give him.
There are days he can't help wondering how good a job Klinger is doing for Col. Potter. What kind of pranks Hawkeye and BJ are playing on Major Winchester. If they have enough bandages and a decent generator; if they're safe. More than once he's stopped out in the field, tractor idling, listening for choppers that never come. He never expected to miss Korea.
Here, no one calls him Radar. He earned that in basic, made it his once he was assigned to a MASH unit, his MASH. And as proud as he is of 'Walter,' he can't help wishing once - just one more time - to hear one of the guys call him from across the compound.
Guess it's not Iowa that changed at all.