Long before anyone ever heard of the "M*A*S*H" movie or the TV series, there were real-life Army docs like Hugh Hickey.

Hickey was still a medical resident when he found himself serving with the 8055th M.A.S.H. unit during the Korean War. One of his fellow surgeons was H. Richard Hornberger, who later wrote a book called "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors" under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. That, in turn, inspired the movie and television series.

"My dad was gone for almost two years," son Dave Hickey said. "He had a wife and a baby at home. My sister, Sue, was born when he was over there and he didn't see her for over a year. That's what happened then, and it's happening now, too."

C. Hugh Hickey died Nov. 2, a month after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was 85. Hickey last lived in Sister Bay.

Named for his father - he never much liked or used the name Clement - he grew up in Whitefish Bay. His father was a dentist who became an orthodontist in the early days of that field. Hugh knew that he wanted to become a surgeon.

Just out of high school, he served with the U.S. Navy as an orderly at the Great Lakes Naval Station hospital during World War II. Then it was off to pre-med and medical school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he met his wife. He married the former Sue Zimmerman in 1949.

Hickey was an orthopedic resident at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit when he was recalled to military service. After a stint in Japan, he was sent to Korea.

"Those M.A.S.H. units weren't on the front lines, but they were close," Dave said. "They lived and worked in tents. It was hot in the summer and colder than cold in the winter.

"There really was an affinity for the Koreans who worked with them," he said. "There's a photo of him next to a Jeep with a couple Korean kids. There were nuns running orphanages. He would do what he could do as a doc, helping those nuns and the children."

Hickey spoke about those days in a profile for "Wisconsin at War/Through the Eyes of Veterans," written by James F. McIntosh and published in 2002 by the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation.

He worked with 20 doctors, a dozen nurses and support people, some of them South Koreans trained by the staff, according to that profile. Surgery was performed on operating tables set on wooden planks and over sandy floors.

"We avoided closing wounds because of infection, gave them antibiotics and sent them back to Pusan or Japan after their wounds have been debrided," Hickey said. "One annoying problem, the OR lights, made in Japan, would sometimes explode without warning, sending pieces of glass all over, including into the wound.

"But I can say that 98% of the patients we cared for made it," he said.

Back in the states, Hickey had to finish his orthopedic residency in Detroit before returning to Milwaukee. He became a founding partner in North Shore Orthopaedics and later established foot clinics in the area.

"He developed a relationship with a doc in Jamaica, Dr. John Golding - sort of the Albert Schweitzer of Jamaica," Dave said. "My dad went there at least several times in the late '70s, early '80s, working in the hospital there."

Hugh and Sue Hickey also liked life in Door County, building a house that became their retirement home. Hickey retired from his Milwaukee-area practice at 65, moving to Sister Bay. Then he worked for 10 more years at Door County Memorial Hospital, where he began a foot clinic.

He began giving talks about his wartime experiences in Korea, taking along his slide presentation.

"There really was a Hot Lips," Hickey would say, referring to the famous character "Hot Lips Houlihan."

While his son didn't know which nurse was the real-life Hot Lips, he heard that she was in one of the photos in his dad's collection.

"My dad had nothing but good to say about those nurses," he said.

In other chapters of his life, Hickey loved sailing on Lake Michigan and poetry. After the death of his wife in 2006, he moved to an assisted living residence in Sister Bay.

"He established a 'Poets' Corner' for people to read and write poetry. I think he loved limericks most of all," his son said, with a laugh.

He also found a late-in-life love with a widow at his new residence.

And Hickey got to go back to Korea once more, at least in a living-vicariously sort of way.

"We were lucky, my wife and I, that we were able to go to Korea," Dave said, adding they went to visit a daughter, Beth, now teaching in South Korea. "By chance it happened to be the 60th anniversary of the Korean War."

He brought an old photo of his father - then a young, strapping 20-something - leaning against a sign at the famous 38th Parallel.

"I held it up and took a picture with my dad's picture," Dave said.

Home again, he got to show the new photo to his dad.

"He was moved," Dave said. "It was such an amazing juxtaposition of time and place. That was such a significant part of his life, and there he was again, at least in picture form."

Other survivors include daughters Sue Rudick, Colleen Johns, Annie Cohn, Chris Hickey, Jenny Hickey and Julie Vreeman; son Gifford; brother Paul; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A memorial gathering will be planned for next June in Sister Bay.