Captain Carmela Hix, USA (born April 22, 1920-died October 21, 2009) was a member of the 8063rd M*A*S*H unit during the Korean War, where she served as a US Army nurse, and also where she worked alongside a surgeon named H. Richard Thornberger, who would later be known to the literary and entertainment world as "Richard Hooker", the author of the original M*A*S*H novel about three Army Doctors, which served as the inspiration for both the Robert Altman film MASH and the long-running CBS-TV series M*A*S*H.
Lt. Carmen Hix as a nurse at the 8063rd MASH unit during the Korean War, 1951.
Carmela, who was born and raised Carmela Filosa in Brooklyn, NY, was a nurse at Queens Hospital in Queens, NY when she joined the US Army Nurse Corps (ANC) in 1951; after going through basic training in Denver, CO, she was transferred to South Korea for duty. In 2002, Carmela, along with Dr. Erik Larsen, who was a surgeon at the 8029th MASH unit, and Joel Keller, who served as the liaison officer for the 8055th MASH unit, participated in the FOX-TV special The M*A*S*H 30th Anniversary Reunion Special, in which they gave videotaped interviews about life as part of a MASH unit in the Korean Conflict. All three pointed out the realism of the description of the conditions depicted in both the TV series and original film, as well as the cases the surgeons and nurses had to face, not to mention the "swamp", or the quarters where the surgeons lived. Carmen also appeared in the 2001 documentary Korean War Stories. Carmela, after the Korean Conflict, wound up settling in Northern Virginia, in the D.C. area with her husband. She died in Arlington, VA.
Notes[]
A Defense Weapon Known to be of Value: Servicewomen of the Korean War Era (1st Edition) by Linda Witt, page 123, ISBN 978-1584654711, UPNE Publishers, 2005.
External links[]
Carmela Hix at the Internet Movie Database- Carmela Hix at Find a Grave Memorial
