Colonel Sherman Blake, portrayed brilliantly by Roger Bowen, remains one of MAS*H’s most underrated and beloved characters. While the surgeons and enlisted personnel received most of the narrative focus, Blake occupied a unique position as the unit’s commanding officer—caught between military protocol and the practical realities of running a functional MASH unit during wartime. His character represents a fascinating paradox: a seemingly incompetent administrator who somehow maintained the moral and operational integrity of his hospital despite overwhelming circumstances. The five most unforgettable Colonel Blake moments reveal the complexity beneath his bumbling exterior and explain why his character resonated so powerfully with audiences.
The First Moment: The Hilarious Incompetence That Masks Genuine Compassion
Colonel Blake’s most famous characteristic was his apparent inability to navigate military bureaucracy effectively. His office became legendary for its chaotic state, his orders frequently contradicted themselves, and his decision-making process seemed to operate on logic entirely his own. Yet what makes this trait so fascinating is how the show repeatedly demonstrated that Blake’s “incompetence” often served his deeper moral convictions.
One particularly memorable sequence involved Blake receiving conflicting orders from headquarters while simultaneously dealing with a medical crisis in the hospital. Rather than rigidly adhering to protocol, Blake found creative ways to interpret regulations in ways that prioritized patient care. His bumbling became a form of strategic maneuvering—by appearing disorganized and slightly out of control, he created space for his talented surgeons to operate without excessive military interference. This wasn’t stupidity; it was a sophisticated understanding of institutional politics deployed in service of genuinely ethical objectives.
The comedy of Blake’s incompetence worked precisely because it masked an underlying commitment to doing the right thing. Audiences laughed at his confusion and administrative disasters, but they also recognized that this man cared more about the welfare of his people than about maintaining a perfect military appearance. In a setting where rigid hierarchy and bureaucratic procedure could cost lives, Blake’s deliberate disorganization became a form of quiet rebellion against dehumanizing military systems.
The Second Moment: The Impossible Moral Choices
While much of Blake’s screen time involved comedic situations, the show occasionally allowed him to confront genuine ethical dilemmas that revealed the burden of command. These moments demonstrated that beneath the humor lay a man genuinely troubled by the weight of his responsibilities. In several episodes, Blake had to make decisions that would result in suffering regardless of which option he chose—determining which wounded soldiers received limited medical resources, deciding whether to follow orders that conflicted with his conscience, or managing the psychological toll of command while supporting his staff.
One particularly poignant moment involved Blake sitting alone in his office late at night, visibly stressed about decisions he had made that day. The camera lingered on his face, revealing the exhaustion and moral weight he carried. This wasn’t comedic; it was tragic. Blake was a fundamentally good man trapped in a system that demanded he make impossible choices. The show brilliantly captured how the burden of command—especially in wartime—could age a person, wearing away at their optimism and certainty.
These moments of vulnerability were crucial to Blake’s character development. They prevented him from becoming a one-dimensional comic figure and instead revealed him as a three-dimensional human being struggling with circumstances beyond his control. Audiences began to understand that his bumbling exterior wasn’t evidence of incompetence but rather a psychological coping mechanism—a way of maintaining some sense of humor and humanity in an environment fundamentally designed to destroy both.
The Third Moment: His Relationships with His Staff
Colonel Blake’s interactions with his subordinates revealed his genuine affection for the people under his command. Unlike a stereotypical military commander, Blake treated his surgeons as colleagues rather than subordinates. He protected them from military bureaucracy, advocated for their needs, and created an environment where they could do their best work despite the chaos surrounding them.
This dynamic was particularly evident in Blake’s relationship with his chief surgeon and with Margaret. He trusted their professional judgment, listened to their concerns, and frequently deferred to their expertise. Rather than viewing this as abdication of authority, the show presented it as enlightened leadership—a commander wise enough to recognize that the people closest to the work often understand it better than those in command positions.
Blake’s genuine care for his staff also manifested in smaller moments: checking on wounded personnel, ensuring his team had adequate rest despite enormous workloads, and occasionally bending regulations to provide his people with small comforts and morale boosters. These actions accumulated to create a portrait of a leader motivated primarily by loyalty and concern for those under his command.
The Fourth Moment: The Communication Attempts with Headquarters
Some of Blake’s most memorable moments involved his attempts to communicate with higher military authority. His phone conversations with command, his written reports, and his interactions with visiting officers frequently devolved into comedic disasters. Yet these scenes often contained subtle commentary on the absurdity of military hierarchy and the disconnect between those making decisions in comfortable offices and those implementing those decisions in combat zones.
Blake’s fumbling attempts to explain situations to headquarters—to justify why his MASH unit operated differently, why casualties were unavoidable, why rigid protocol sometimes had to yield to practical necessity—represented his ongoing struggle to bridge the gap between military expectations and wartime reality. His failures in these communications highlighted how difficult it was to make those in power understand the true nature of his work.
The Fifth Moment: His Humanity in Crisis
Perhaps the most unforgettable Colonel Blake moments were those where personal crisis stripped away all pretense of command authority. When Blake received news that affected him personally, when he confronted the reality of war’s human cost, when his carefully maintained emotional distance crumbled—these moments revealed the essential humanity beneath the uniform.
These instances reminded viewers that Colonel Blake was ultimately just a man—a good man trying to do an impossible job, struggling with the weight of command, and occasionally breaking under the strain. His vulnerability in these moments made him more, not less, heroic. He didn’t maintain the stoic detachment expected of military commanders; instead, he allowed himself to feel, to struggle, and occasionally to fail.
The Legacy of Colonel Blake
Colonel Sherman Blake’s five most unforgettable moments represent a character far more complex and compelling than surface-level viewing might suggest. He embodied the fundamental contradiction at the heart of MAS*H: how to maintain humanity, compassion, and integrity within a system designed to eliminate all three. His bumbling exterior masked genuine wisdom, his apparent incompetence served ethical purposes, and his vulnerability revealed rather than diminished his strength as a leader and as a human being. These moments ensure that Colonel Blake remains one of television’s most memorable and endearing characters.