M*A*S*H (TV Series)
Yessir, That's Our Baby (1979)
Alan Alda: Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce
Photos
Quotes
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Chung Ho Kim : Gentlemen, it is truly not a matter for my government to deal with.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : This kid has a label that says "Made in Korea." Who do we talk to, Yugoslavia?
Chung Ho Kim : I am sorry.
Col. Sherman Potter : What about the terrible stories we hear? Mutilating babies, killing them?
Chung Ho Kim : Sadly, Colonel, in some cases they are true.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : My God, what kind of a place is this?
Col. Sherman Potter : Easy, Pierce. We're just visitors in this country.
Chung Ho Kim : It's all right, Colonel. The captain asks a valid question.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Then how about a valid answer?
Chung Ho Kim : This is an ancient land, Captain. Its culture goes back many, many centuries. It has survived many wars. Our people are of one race. It is their feeling that the intrusion of a mixed-race child into such an ordered society represents disorder. Such a child is hated here.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Yeah, so I've heard.
Chung Ho Kim : I do not deny that they are treated with terrible cruelty. Korean law barely acknowledges their existence, and protects them not at all.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Swell.
Chung Ho Kim : This may seem harsh and inflexible, but such attitudes are not unique to my country.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Oh, who is it now, Bolivia?
Chung Ho Kim : No, Captain, your United States. Americans are not the only ones fathering such children, but they are the only ones who ignore them. France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, acknowledge a responsibility for these unfortunate babies of their military. They will support and help them, offer them citizenship, but the United States - where all men are created equal - refuses to do this. You reject the children of your own people.
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Roger Prescott : Yes. Well, the answer's no.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : No? Just like that? No?
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Pierce, please. Mr. Prescott, surely you will agree that this is a decision that should not be made in haste; there must be some discussion.
Roger Prescott : Actually, none whatsoever. We cannot admit an unattended juvenile with no resident relatives to the States.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : But...
Roger Prescott : And no application for such admission can be processed without authority from a blood relative in the child's country of origin.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Now, see here...
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Look, Prescott, this "unattended juvenile" you're so blithely dismissing could conceivably be murdered in the name of racial purity. You got space on your application for that?
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Pierce, I'm handling this, remember?
Roger Prescott : There is nothing to handle. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, by statute, has strict quota restrictions. My hands are tied.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Now, there's an idea.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Just a moment. Mr. Prescott, there are always alternatives.
Roger Prescott : Not in this case, Major.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Mr. Prescott, I have friends of considerable influence...
Roger Prescott : Gentlemen, you are wasting my time.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Congressmen, senators, cabinet members...
Roger Prescott : Please believe me, this is departmental policy. There can be no immigration under the circumstances you have set forth.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Captains of industry...
Roger Prescott : Good day.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : [stands and throws his hat down] There is nothing good about it, Mr. Prescott! We are discussing a little girl - a human being who is facing a life of misery - an issue infinitely more important than you and your stupid seating arrangements!
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Charles...
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Shut up, Pierce!
[the phones rings, and Charles picks it up]
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Mr. Prescott is in conference. Let them eat out!
Roger Prescott : How dare you!
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : You smarmy bureaucratic microbe, you're going to that dinner breathing through your fly!
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Father Francis Mulcahy : Well, I understand the stork dropped off a package while I was gone.
Col. Sherman Potter : Good morning, Padre. This little lady seems to be alone in the world. Do you think the good sisters at the orphanage can help out?
Father Francis Mulcahy : I'm sure they can, Colonel. The first rule of orphanages and Irish families is, "There's always room for one more."
Major Margaret Houlihan : Isn't she lovely?
Father Francis Mulcahy : Oh, yes. Yes, quite nice.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Nice? She's gorgeous. Doesn't she deserve at least a "Wow" or a "Holy smoke"? Where's the oohs and ahhs?
Father Francis Mulcahy : Is this child of mixed parents?
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : All we know is that there was one of each. Is that mixed enough?
Major Margaret Houlihan : Her father's an American, and her mother's Korean.
Father Francis Mulcahy : I was afraid of that.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : What's the problem? We want to get her into an orphanage, not a country club.
Father Francis Mulcahy : [paces] The orphanage will take her, of course, but that won't help her much. The problems faced by the children of American soldiers and Korean women are very serious. When the people of the villages find out about them, the lives of the children and mothers become a horror. They're outcasts. Little boys have been emasculated... and little girls, killed outright.
Major Margaret Houlihan : My God.
Father Francis Mulcahy : Even in the orphanage, the other Korean children will be very cruel to her. And when she grows up, she'll be ostracized by every segment of Korean society. This child has no future here, none at all. She'll end up a virtual slave... or worse.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : There must be somebody who can help this kid.
Father Francis Mulcahy : I'm afraid not. Her only hope - and that's slim at best - would be sanctuary in one of the old Catholic missions.
Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : We'll take it. Slim is better than none.
Major Margaret Houlihan : What do we do? Where are these places?
Father Francis Mulcahy : Well, there's one not too far off. Armies, for centuries, have fought around it, left it untouched. The monks will keep her cloistered, educate her, and in fifteen or twenty years, working with their other monasteries abroad, perhaps they can get her out of Korea.
Col. Sherman Potter : With all due respect, Father, that doesn't sound like much of a life.
Father Francis Mulcahy : It isn't. But it's the best we can do.
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Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce : Klinger, my compliments to Zale on making that cradle.
Cpl. Maxwell Q. Klinger : Hey, the handle part was my idea.
Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III : Congratulations, Klinger. This might mean a Nobel Prize. You have invented 'the stick'.
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Capt. Benjamin Franklin 'Hawkeye' Pierce : [Hawkeye is about to deposit the baby into the monastery's foundling portal, never to see her again for the one life he can provide for an Amerasian child in Korea] You brought a little light to a dark and dismal place. And you'll never know what you meant to a group of tired people stuck in a very strange time. Be happy.