The Painless Pole, beyond any shadow of a doubt, was the best-equipped dentist in the U.S. Army Dental Corps. He was the owner and operator of the Pride of Hamtramck. Officers and enlisted men from the entire area frequently visited the 4077th MASH, supposedly to take advantage of the shower facilities, but actually they came in hope of catching a glimpse, and one day a corporal from Mississippi spoke for them all.

“Ah’d purely love,” he said, “to see it angry.”

Painless was removed from the coffin and taken to a waiting helicopter of the 5th Air Rescue Squadron parked just behind the preop ward. At a height of about fifty feet over the ballfield, directly in front of The Swamp, he was given a large shot of benzedrine intravenously and lowered from the chopper by a rope. A string attached to the ripcord was pulled, and the chute opened. A rescue crew waited below holding a blanket. The pilot released the rope. Painless and his parachute, to the cheers of the gathering, plummeted eight feet into the blanket.