Colonel Potter: Encyclopedia II - Colonel Potter - CO of the 4077th

Colonel Potter - CO of the 4077th

After Colonel Blake left the 4077th MASH, Colonel Potter was assigned to the unit as the CO. As he would later tell Klinger, the first few days were "a mite uneasy" and that "no one was jumping for joy" over his arrival. Initially, Hawkeye and BJ feared having a "regular army" man in charge, which they felt was even worse than having Frank in charge - with Frank at least they stood a chance of outwitting him. They also feared about Potter being rusty having not done any recent surgery. However, despite it being several years since having performed an operation, Potter had no problem resuming surgery.

It took a few days, but once Potter and the rest of the staff got to know each other Potter became good friends with many of the people in his unit. Almost always giving off the aura of everyone's favorite father, he was particularly good friends with Hawkeye, B.J., Radar, Mulcahy, Klinger, and Major Houilhan. Potter particularly became a father figure to Radar during Radar's time at the 4077th, much as his predecessor Henry Blake had. In return, when Radar found a wounded stray horse, later called Sophie, he gave her to Potter so he could care for her. Another continuity error occurs because in that episode, the horse is referred to as a male. For Potter's part, he was delighted to have a horse again and rode her regularly throughout the remainder of his assignment with the unit. Upon his arrival, Potter demonstrated that he knew every trick in the book, including cross dressing for an insanity discharge, and continually refused to discharge Klinger, though he let Klinger get away with wearing dresses. When Radar's Uncle Ed died at the beginning of the 8th season, he helped Radar get a hardship discharge so Radar could return home to Iowa. When Klinger took over as clerk, Potter realized that Klinger needed to adjust to his new job. Using his own experience of relizing how much work he had replacing Henry Blake, he explained to Klinger how he had to make the position given to him his own, just like how Potter had to make Henry Blake's position his own. So Potter took Klinger under his wing, and as a result Klinger eventually did a passable job. It was Potter's approval that eventually got Klinger promoted to sergeant. Off the record, Klinger did a near pitch-perfect impression/impersonation of Colonel Potter, which was key to Klinger snagging a generator from military supplies.

Potter did not get along with Frank Burns, but then again, no one really got along well with Frank. When Frank said he loved being in Korea, Potter said that either Burns or Klinger was nuts, and now he had to figure out who it was. When Frank Burns finally had a nervous breakdown and was transferred stateside, Potter had arranged to have Major Winchester assigned to the unit. Winchester was a much better surgeon, but at the same time was somewhat pretentious. Winchester was also angry about being assigned to the 4077th which led to a few arguments between Winchester and Potter. Winchester often regretted this when he repeatedly sneered about certain unpleasant, but necessary duties only to anger Potter enough to order the haughty surgeon to perform them himself. Potter also had to occasionally deal with the intelligence officer Colonel Flagg.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "CO of the 4077th", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki