TASK FORCE HAWK, Albania (AP) -- Television reruns of "M*A*S*H," the comedy about martini-swilling, nurse-chasing Army doctors during the Korean War, may flicker on into the next century. But the real thing is about to become history.
When the Kosovo crisis abates enough for the 5,000 U.S. troops at this mud-caked base next to Tirana's airport to go home, the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the army's only remaining MASH, will strike its own tents for the last time.In its place the next time American soldiers go in harm's way will be a Forward Surgical Team -- far smaller and more efficient. It will even have a better acronym: FAST.
Moloff said his idea emerged from a post-gulf war demand by the military for lighter, more mobile medical units.
Where a MASH has 133 people and needs C-141 Starlifter cargo jets to carry a hospital covering the size of a football field when fully erected, the FAST will have 22 people, travel in two C-130 Hercules planes and occupy an area only 20 by 30 feet.