- A little white lie about an imaginary officer balloons into an elaborate charade.
- Throughout his childhood, Hawkeye had an imaginary friend, Tuttle, who knocked over garbage, broke windows and wet the bed. When Hawkeye resurrects "Captain Tuttle" to requisition food and supplies for Sister Theresa and the orphanage, he stirs up a mare's nest. Henry orders his newest officer to take on O.D. duty, Frank is miffed that Tuttle has not reported to him as 2d in command and Hotlips is just, plain hot...as soon as she reads the "official" record (as written by Hawkeye, Trapper and Radar). The 6'4," 195 lb. auburn-haired, hazel eyed Captain Jonathan "Johnny" Tuttle, M.D. makes great reading. Hotlips calls General Clayton to check on Tuttle and Hawkeye impersonates Gen. Clayton. When the guys arrange for Capt. Tuttle to receive 14 months of back pay, this turns into a special citation and award ceremony for the industrious hero. Will someone appear to accept all of these military honors or will Hawkeye finally be busted?—LA-Lawyer
- Hawkeye systematically 'donates' supplies stolen from the Army to a nuns-run orphanage, in the name of his imaginary childhood buddy, now promoted as captain Jonathan "Johnny" Tully. Radar helped cover, but when the post CO and even the general at HQ take an interest in Tylly, while Frank wants to become his bunk buddy, Pierce and mates try everything to avoid his nonexistence being found out. Finally, after a paymaster insists to have Tully sign and a decoration ceremony-y is planned, a fatal explosion is staged, with his inheritance left to the orphanage.—KGF Vissers
- One night Hawkeye and Trapper smuggle a load of supplementary supplies out of the supply tent and donate them to Sister Theresa's (Mary Robin Redd) orphanage but she wants to know where it all comes from. Not wanting to get into trouble for this generous act, Hawkeye lies and tells the good sister that it all came from Captain Tuttle. She is overwhelmed with gratitude but Hawkeye and Trapper don't want her to make a fuss since Tuttle is such a man of humility. In trying to straighten out the paperwork, Hawkeye tells Trapper that Tuttle was his imaginary friend as a child and apparently the fall guy for everything that he did wrong. Eventually, of course, when Hawkeye was drafted, Tuttle came right along with him.
The paperwork proves not to be a problem until it falls into the hands of Colonel Blake who quizzes Radar about who Tuttle is - he doesn't remember ever having met him. Radar does some fast talking to get the Colonel's mind around the fact that the man doesn't exist, until Henry recommends that Tuttle be made Officer of the Day. Things go from bad to worse when Frank and Margaret get wind of the new man at the camp and demand to see his file. Again, acting fast, Radar does some quick dodging to keep them at bay while Hawkeye and Trapper dream up a profile that can't be traced. When Frank and Margaret dig further Radar has to do some shuffling with the radio so that she can't check up on Tuttle with General Clayton up at H.Q. in Seoul. Hawkeye diverts her efforts by pretending to be the General on the phone.
The con game is starting to work its magic on Henry, who believes that he had breakfast with Tuttle, and with Frank, who believes that he and Tuttle are kindred spirits. But Henry gets more and more inquisitive and demands a meeting with the new man. Hawkeye, Radar and Trapper have their hands full running Henry and Frank all over the camp looking for Tuttle. Continuing the ruse, Hawkeye and Trapper then arrange for Tuttle to be paid a large sum of back pay. When the finance officer comes around, he is overcome with pride when Tuttle (actually Hawkeye in surgical garb) informs him that all of his future pay is to go directly to Sister Theresa's orphanage.
News of Captain Tuttle's generosity reaches General Clayton - the REAL General Clayton - and he insists that the good captain's generosity be made more tangible and more formal. When the General arrives at the 4077th to give Tuttle a medal, the captain is called into the compound. Hawkeye then shows up to give the general the bad news that while everyone else was at breakfast thinking only of their own stomachs, that Tuttle went out in a chopper to do some field surgery, taking along everything that he needed. . . except his parachute. Hawkeye delivers Tuttle's eulogy and there isn't a dry eye in the camp. Later Radar would like to know where he and Trapper came up with the parachute and the dog tags. Trapper tells him that they came from Tuttle's replacement Major Murdock.
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