Sergeant Condon was a character who appeared on the television series M*A*S*H, in the Season 2 episode "Dear Dad...Three". The part of Sgt. Condon was played in the episode by Mills Watson, who would later co-star in the NBC-TV Sheriff Lobo series.1
About Sgt. Condon and Nurse Ginger Bayliss[]
In the "Dear Dad...Three", Lieutenant Ginger Bayliss was faced with the arduous task of dealing with the bigoted Sgt. Condon, for whom she was used to supply a pint of blood. Trapper John, partly as a gag, and to teach Condon a lesson on race, with Hawkeye paint the soldier's face with (Iodine) brown paint to have him think that the blood he had made him change colors, Ginger, while treating him, sees his face painted to look black and says "They got you down as white...Good work, baby!" Sgt. Condon says, "What the hell are you talking about!? Get outta here!!", Ginger answers back, "Soldier, I am a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army!!! You may be trying to pass (as White), but watch your mouth!!!"
After his confrontation with Nurse Ginger, Hawkeye and Trapper lecture Condon about the death of famed surgeon/researcher Dr. Charles Drew, who developed the blood collection process that would be the inspiration for the formation of the Red Cross Blood Bank, had recently died in North Carolina after an automobile accident because white doctors had refused to give him a blood transfusion. A changed man, Sgt. Condon apologizes to Nurse Ginger, even saluting her upon his release and departure back to his unit.
Factoid[]
Whether that the claim that Dr. Charles Drew died because of not getting treated at the hospital he was rushed to after his automobile accident because of his race is a fact or just urban legend, it invoked the irony of a doctor who researched and improved the storage of blood and transfusion dying possibly because the very methods he improved were withheld from him because of his race.[1]
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