Sick and tired of having liver and fish for an 11-day stretch, Hawkeye, driven near to insanity, starts a riot in the mess tent. He and Trapper then orders spare ribs and sauce from the best place he ever had them, in Chicago. Trapper calls a woman he spent a weekend with to pick up the ribs, and then they get choppered in. Unfortunately, right as they're sitting down to eat, wounded arrive, and Hawkeye is forced to postpone sinking his teeth into his beloved ribs.
The 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is stuck in the middle of the Korean war. With little help from the circumstances they find themselves in, they are forced to make their own fun. Fond of practical jokes and revenge, the doctors, nurses, administrators, and soldiers often find ways of making wartime life bearable.