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Speaker 1: This is Lee Habibe and this is our American Stories.

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Speaker 1: For eleven seasons, Alan Alda wore the same set of

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Speaker 1: dog tags as Captain Hawkeye Pierce on MASH. Most viewers

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Speaker 1: assumed they were Hollywood props, but they weren't. Here's journalist

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Speaker 1: Andy Lewis with the tale of how a smash hit show,

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Speaker 1: a black man from the South and a Jewish man

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Speaker 1: from New York connect.

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Speaker 2: I discovered Mash in middle school. I was a dedicated

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Speaker 2: watcher When the show came to an end. I remember

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Speaker 2: making a big deal about it and talking to my

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Speaker 2: friends about it and thinking about how sad I was

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Speaker 2: that it was going off the air. I have probably

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Speaker 2: seen every MASH episode four or five times. I love

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Speaker 2: it to death, and I get regular press releases from

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Speaker 2: auction houses. I noticed that Alan Alda, the lead character

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Speaker 2: on MASH for all eleven seasons, was auctioning off his

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Speaker 2: Mash memorabilia, and I thought, that's pretty cool. When something

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Speaker 2: comes up like that, it's pretty rare. Alan Alda had

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Speaker 2: kept only two momentos from the show, the boots he

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Speaker 2: wore in every episode and the dog tags that he

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Speaker 2: also wore in every episode.

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Speaker 3: I guess it's the things that meant the most to me.

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Speaker 3: I can't think of anything else I would have kept.

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Speaker 2: But the funny thing is there happened to be a

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Speaker 2: photograph of the dog tags, and I assumed they would

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Speaker 2: say the fictional character's name, Hawkeye Pierce, and his fictional hometown.

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Speaker 2: But they were the names of two real soldiers, one

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Speaker 2: Morris Lavine and the other hersyed Avinport. They weren't fictional people.

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Speaker 2: They were real people, and I wondered about that. I

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Speaker 2: thought I would love to know their story.

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Speaker 3: They were constant for me, connecting with the people who

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Speaker 3: who were these objects. Every day for eleven years, putting

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Speaker 3: them on over my head, wearing them, I started at

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Speaker 3: some point I had a very close connection with the

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Speaker 3: mental lot to me.

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Speaker 2: I called up the auction house and asked if they

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Speaker 2: would tell me more. I was told only that they

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Speaker 2: sold for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, and

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Speaker 2: all we know about them is when they were born

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Speaker 2: and when they died. One was buried on the West

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Speaker 2: Coast and one was buried on Long Island, not far

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Speaker 2: from where Alan Alda lives. But they didn't know anything

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Speaker 2: else about them. I decided it was a challenge that

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Speaker 2: I could solve. The only information I had was what

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Speaker 2: was on the dog tags, which is their name, their hometown,

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Speaker 2: and when they were born. I asked a friend of

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Speaker 2: mine who's a historian and also a former Army captain,

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Speaker 2: if he could help with the army record. One problem

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Speaker 2: with Army records is there was a big fire in

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Speaker 2: the early nineteen seventies and a lot of records Burnt.

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Speaker 2: Turns out, hersy was pretty easy to track down for

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Speaker 2: him because the name is unique, and I learned when

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Speaker 2: I called his daughter that he was from Mississippi. He

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Speaker 2: was thirty three when he enlisted and he was assigned

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Speaker 2: to be an engineer. He didn't see any frontline combat.

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Speaker 2: He helped do behind the line stuff like Bill Bridges,

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Speaker 2: But as Alan Aldas said to me, it takes an

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Speaker 2: army to get an army to war, and most servicemen

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Speaker 2: did things like that to help soldiers on the frontline fight.

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Speaker 2: After the war, he moved to Oakland, where he worked

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Speaker 2: in shipbuilding until he died. About two years before the

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Speaker 2: TV show Mash debuted on the air. Paula she was flabbergasted.

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Speaker 2: She had no idea that her father's dog tags were

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Speaker 2: a bit player in mash and one of the first

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Speaker 2: things that was interesting to me is that the dog

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Speaker 2: tags listed him as black. She immediately told me that

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Speaker 2: that actually wasn't totally true. Her grandfather was Irish and

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Speaker 2: her grandmother was Chocataw Indian, but they identified as black.

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Speaker 2: And then she told me about her father's childhood in Mississippi.

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Speaker 2: He had been so poor that he couldn't afford shoes.

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Speaker 2: She told me about how smart he was, but he

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Speaker 2: didn't get a chance to finish school because he had

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Speaker 2: to go earn money. How he had a couple of kids,

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Speaker 2: a house in Berkeley on a corner lot with a

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Speaker 2: little chicken coop in the bag. How he used to

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Speaker 2: like to hold a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. She told

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Speaker 2: me one of his favorite things to do was to

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Speaker 2: put jazz records on and dance with her mother in

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Speaker 2: the house. As most people probably know, the army was

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Speaker 2: segregated and black soldiers weren't always given the best jobs.

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Speaker 2: Hersty always thought he could have done more, and she

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Speaker 2: thought one of the reasons why he had gotten rid

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Speaker 2: of his army stuff and never talked about his experience

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Speaker 2: was he felt bitter and didn't want to revisit those

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Speaker 2: memories much later in life. But Morris Levine, I was

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Speaker 2: still pretty stumped. A Jewish guy named Morris Levine in

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Speaker 2: New York City is basically John Smith. There's a lot

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Speaker 2: of Morris Levin's. One day I found a paid death

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Speaker 2: notice that listed some relative, and that was enough information

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Speaker 2: for me to go on, since now I knew whose

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Speaker 2: relatives were. Most of the stories I learned came from

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Speaker 2: his niece, who knew him very well into her twenties.

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Speaker 2: Morris Levine was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was

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Speaker 2: the second oldest of a family of six kids. His

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Speaker 2: parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father died when

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Speaker 2: he was very young. Like Hersey, all the kids had

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Speaker 2: to leave school early to work to help support the family,

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Speaker 2: and he enlisted in the army in nineteen forty two

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Speaker 2: at the age of thirty five. The next of kin

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Speaker 2: listed on his dog tags was his wife. They got

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Speaker 2: married a short time before the war, but while he

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Speaker 2: was overseas in the Pacific, she sent him a classic

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Speaker 2: Dear John letter telling him that she was divorcing him

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Speaker 2: and marrying somebody who was still home and that was

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Speaker 2: the end of it. He never remarried after that. The

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Speaker 2: highlight and the only story his niece could remember clearly

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Speaker 2: was he got to meet pee Wee Reese, the Brooklyn

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Speaker 2: Dodger baseball player, because Reese, like so many other Major

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Speaker 2: League players, served in the war, and he got a

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Speaker 2: picture of himself with pee Wee Reese, and that was

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Speaker 2: his favorite story. The details of some of his service

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Speaker 2: were fuzzy to her because he didn't like to talk

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Speaker 2: about it. And after the war he got a job

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Speaker 2: in the back office at Lehman Brothers. Everybody loved him.

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Speaker 2: He helped organize the Lehman Brothers Company baseball team. His

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Speaker 2: nickname was Chick. He loved rooting for the Dodgers more

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Speaker 2: than anything else and died at sixty five in June

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three. That would have been a few months

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Speaker 2: after MASH wrapped up its first season. We don't know

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Speaker 2: if he ever saw it or not, but it was

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Speaker 2: on the air in the year before he passed away.

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Speaker 2: The thing I loved about this story It featured one

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Speaker 2: man who grew up in the segregated South and another

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Speaker 2: who was a Jewish immigrant who grew up in New York.

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Speaker 2: My Jewish grandfather immigrated to the United States in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen hundreds, lied about his age so he could enlist

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Speaker 2: in the US Navy in World War One, and this

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Speaker 2: helped connect me to my own family history a little

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Speaker 2: bit also connect me to American history because we have

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Speaker 2: a black man from the South, a Jewish man from

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Speaker 2: New York City, me with a Jewish grandfather who lied

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Speaker 2: to serve.

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Speaker 1: In World War One.

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Speaker 2: It's the story of the twentieth century in a handful

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Speaker 2: of people, ordinary men who were called up, sometimes reluctantly,

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Speaker 2: to serve their country, did their duty and lived ordinary lives.

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Speaker 2: To me, the story of ordinary soldiers is the most

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Speaker 2: American story we can tell.

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Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling

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Speaker 1: by John Elfner. He's a frequent contributor and he's a

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Speaker 1: high school history teacher in Illinois, and also producing and

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Speaker 1: storytelling on that piece was our own Monte Montgomery. And

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Speaker 1: a special thanks to Andy Lewis for sharing this story

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Speaker 1: of this black man from the South and a Jewish

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Speaker 1: man from New York and how they connected through the

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Speaker 1: show Mash, which, by the way, if people don't remember,

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Speaker 1: was one of the big smash hits of the nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventies and early eighties. Eleven years, eleven seasons, that is,

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Speaker 1: and on that last show, that last episode, a two

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Speaker 1: point five hour episode in nineteen eighty three, one hundred

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Speaker 1: and six million viewers tuned in seventy seven percent of

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Speaker 1: America's TV viewing audience. But those dog tags were actually

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Speaker 1: Alan Olda's special connection to these ordinary men, and a

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Speaker 1: terrific job by Andy Lewis to track down the stories

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Speaker 1: of Maurice Levigne and Hersey Davenport, two men from very

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Speaker 1: different parts of this great country, living very different lives,

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Speaker 1: ordinary soldiers who did extraordinary things in World War II.

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Speaker 1: The story of the secret history of Allan Olda's mashed

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Speaker 1: dog tags here on our American Stories