After a patient who shot himself in the foot challenges him for not understanding life on the front, Father Mulcahy decides to see what conditions are like - and gets more than he bargained for. Meanwhile, Frank operates on a dog that tripped a land mine to save its partner in bomb disposal from stepping on it.
Attention, all personnel! Father Mulcahy will be assisting with retrieving the following tropes from the front.
- Armor-Piercing Response: In response to learning Mulcahy has never been to the front, Fitzsimons (who shot himself in the foot) remarks, "Boy, if Boom-Boom could see us now, he'd wonder where he went wrong."
- Badass Preacher: Father Marty Gallagher certainly qualifies, if the stories are any indication. Father Mulcahy earns the title by episode's end.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Mulcahy implores Potter to let him go to the front, the Colonel is trying to use the Father's eyedropper. The eyedropper is later instrumental for the tracheotomy.
- Commonality Connection: Both Mulcahy and Private Fitzsimons both know Father Marty Gallagher from back home. Mulcahy also goes to the front to better understand Fitzsimons and be able to talk to him, which ultimately works.
- Everyone Has Standards: Klinger refuses to shoot himself in the foot to get out of the army - he'd ruin a perfectly good pair of nylons.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Even after the surgery, Cupcake the dog has no patience for Frank.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Corporal Cupcake, the German Shepherd.
- Hero of Another Story: Father Marty "Boom-Boom" Gallagher fought in World War I and is said to have had many exploits. Even Potter has heard of some of them, particularly the legendary poker games in-between shelling.
- Heroes Love Dogs: The other surgeons and Radar sure do, and they have to guilt Frank into operating on the featured pooch with talk of how badly his refusal would be received back home.
- Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: When the wounded soldier begins to choke on his tongue. Fortunately, Father Mulcahy has Hawkeye to guide him over the radio.
- Irony: After talking Mulcahy and Radar through the tracheotomy via radio, Hawkeye questions why he couldn't have been phoning in his work the whole war instead of going to Korea.
- It Never Gets Any Easier: The aid station Father Mulcahy and Radar are visiting for the errand is being shelled. When a frightened Mulcahy asks a local soldier how they get used to it, the soldier calmly notes, "You get used to never getting used to it."
- MacGyvering: Using only a pocketknife, an eyedropper, some cotton, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol Father Mulcahy performs a roadside tracheotomy.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: Radar and Igor, the company clerk and mess tent server, are the only enlisted men who can bring a wounded soldier back from the front.
- Rage Against the Mentor: Father Mulcahy tries to offer comfort to a wounded patient, who counters that Father Mulcahy can't relate because he hasn't been to the front.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Back at the bar, Potter points out he explicitly told Mulcahy not to go to the front, but he never pushes it any further.
- Roadside Surgery: Hawkeye walks Mulcahy through one over the radio.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Despite being told to stay in camp, Father Mulcahy insists on going to the front to help retrieve a wounded patient from battalion aid.
- Secret-Keeper: Father Mulcahy disapproves of Private Fitzsimons shooting himself in the foot, but he keeps his confidence.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Hawkeye and B.J. can immediately tell Private Fitzsimons shot himself in the foot, but they never discuss this with him. They actively keep Frank from figuring it out to spare the kid further grief.
- Shout-Out: The title is a shout-out to the 1971 movie Murphy's War.
- Soldiers at the Rear: Father Mulcahy is forbidden by regulations to be on combat duty, but a wounded soldier will not talk to him because he's convinced that the Padre will never know what it's like at the front. Mulcahy subsequent adventure there changes his mind.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: While refusing to let him go to the front, Potter points out that Mulcahy is anything but useless to the 4077.Potter: Father, you've got the toughest job in camp and there's not much glory in it, like there is for the surgeons and the nurses, but you're the one who really holds things together. You should be proud.
