Dear Dad mostly through letters. Dear Dad "Dear Dad" was the 12th episode of the first season of the TV series "M*A*S*H". It originally aired on December 17, 1972 and was repeated on May 20, 1973. This was the first episode to use an epistle as part of the narrative, a device that would be used in later episodes. Hawkeye writes home to his father during the Christmas season, relating a number of amusing and personal anecdotes including Radar's effort to mail home a jeep piece-by-piece, the monthly morality lecture, Trapper's local medical philanthropy, and the ongoing non-secret relationship between Frank and
Private Pike the pier. Although Pike comes up with sensible solutions to problems encountered by the platoon, he treats "everything as if it's a game", to quote Mainwaring in "All is Safely Gathered In". Notably, in "The Deadly Attachment", Pike was put on an ominous 'list' by a German U-Boat captain due to Mainwaring's incompetence at preventing the German from learning Pike's name ("Don't tell him, Pike!"), spelling his doom should the Germans win the war; however, as Pike had sung a childish song about Adolf Hitler in front of this officer, it is his own fault in refusing to take the