From the interview with Gordon Cramer of Seattle conducted at the Fort Worden History Center by Hazel Hatfield on May 11, 2002. Mr. Cramer served in the US Army, 369th Engineer Amphibious Support Regiment at Fort Worden during the Korean War era:

“…I was assigned to the 8055th MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital). And I spent one full year with that MASH, an interesting experience. I came in as a medic, well they needed somebody in medical records; and the CO asked me if I could type, and I had seen military typists at work with two fingers and I figured, well, if that qualifies me, I could type…. About a month after I’d gotten there…the guy who was the sergeant was the NCO in charge killed his house boy and they didn’t want to court martial him so they shipped him out and we had a vacancy. They needed somebody to be the NCO and nobody wanted it. I told the captain if he’d get me my sergeant’s stripes I’d be glad to take that position. …I learned only last year that the fella who wrote ‘M*A*S*H*’ was at that hospital the whole time I was there. He was a doctor and I was an enlisted man, but I knew him. I had always wondered what outfit that television program or the movie had been written about because I never enjoyed it…it was too close to reality, just far too close to reality.”