by Jason Snell
The Secret History of Hawkeye’s Dog Tags
Amazing story from Andy Lewis of The Ankler about the real-life veterans behind the dog tags worn by Alan Alda on the hall-of-fame sitcom “MASH”:
Often when he was putting the dog tags on in his dressing room, seemingly obtained by the costume designers of MAS*H, he would ponder who the men were and where they served, even if they survived the war. The fact that there was only one tag for each, instead of the usual pair, made him wonder if they were alive or dead: “I didn’t know anything about them other than their names.”
Suffice it to say that now Alda, and the rest of us, know a lot more about these two men who served in World War II and never knew who ended up wearing their dog tags.
[Via Craig Calcaterra]