Radar O'Reilly was briefly promoted to what officer rank after a poker debt?

Radar O’Reilly was briefly promoted to Second Lieutenant after a poker debt.

Radar’s unusual promotion occurs in the Season 3 episode “Love Story.” A poker game creates a debt connected to Radar, and the Army resolves the situation by temporarily commissioning him as a second lieutenant. The promotion sounds like a reward, but Radar quickly discovers that commissioned rank brings unfamiliar responsibilities and complications.

Radar is best known as the 4077th’s company clerk and bugler, not as a career officer. His uncanny ability to anticipate commanders’ needs, hear incoming helicopters, and produce the correct paperwork earned him the nickname “Radar.” His promotion therefore plays as both a plot twist and a joke about the difference between being exceptionally capable at a job and being suited to military command.

The commission does not last. Radar soon returns to the enlisted ranks after realizing that life as an officer is more complicated than he expected. The question is sometimes confused with other M*A*S*H rank changes, particularly Klinger’s later promotion to sergeant and Frank Burns’s post-transfer promotion to lieutenant colonel.