Alan Alda played the witty Capt. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce in the television show MAS*H for 11 seasons. Alda is prepared to go with a piece of television history—his character’s boots and dog tags—now that it has been 40 years.

According to the Associated Press, the 87-year-old actor intends to auction the used boots and dog tags, with the money going to the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

The Alda-founded institution uses improvisational exercises and communication techniques to improve scientific and medical communication.

The costume department gave Alda the boots and dog tags at the end of the series.

He claimed that the objects “made an impression on me every day we shot the show.”

“There’s an old saying among actors that it’s easier to believe you’re the character when you put the shoes of the character on, and I think the boots had that effect on me,”

Alda discovered the dog tags bore the names of two men, most likely soldiers, rather than his character’s name after getting them.

“I saw those names every single day,” he claimed. “Putting them on was an unusual experience. I didn’t work with props. I was dealing with a situation that allowed me to interact with actual individuals.

According to Heritage Auctions’ independent investigation, Hersie Davenport and Morriss D. Levine both served in the military and were honorably discharged in 1945.

Levine passed away in 1973, but Davenport did in 1970.

Alda stored the things on a shelf in his office for the decades that followed the MAS*H series finale before hiding them away for safety.

I viewed this as an opportunity to put them back to work.

I admire Alan Alda even more now that he gave his cherished assets from MAS*H to fund science.

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