Secret History of Alan Alda's M*A*S*H Dog Tags

At auction, it was revealed they were from WWII vets: a Black man from the South and a Jew from Brooklyn. I found their families

BAND OF BROTHERS Clockwise, from top left: Private Hersie Davenport; Alan Alda (right) and Mike Farrell in M*A*S*H; Corporal Morris Levine. Alda their WWII dog tags for all 11 seasons of the show. (M*A*S*H: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

“There's an old saying among actors,” Alan Alda explains to me in an October phone call. “They don't feel like th…