Alan Alda auctioning his boots and dog tags from ‘M*A*S*H’ to benefit Stony Brook Univ.

Combat boots and dog tags.

They were the only products Alan Alda kept when “M*A*S*H” ended its historical 11-season tv run in 1983. He used them every day on the set of the hit CBS program, which illustrated a mobile surgical medical facility throughout the Korean War.

Now, the five-time Emmy Award winning star is auctioning them off to benefit the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. Heritage Auctions will perform the auction in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, July 28.

The dog tags were more than props. They were real tags that brought the names of Hersie Davenport and Morriss D. Levine. The auction house showed that both guys were released from the U.S. Army in 1945.

“I saw those names every day,” Alda informed the Associated Press. “It was an interesting experience to put them on. I wasn’t dealing with props. I was dealing with something that put me in touch with real people.”

Alda, who played cosmetic surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in “M*A*S*H” and composed and directed the record-setting series ending, said that he initially kept the products on a rack in his workplace. Later, he moved them to a closet.

“I saw this as a chance to put them to work again,” he said. “They were the items that meant the most to me.”

Stony Brook University opened the Center for Communicating Science in 2009, a  partnership in between Alda, the university and Stony Brook’s School of Communication and Journalism, with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

The university said the the Alda Center’s graduate and expert advancement programs venture to make science more available, focusing on building abilities and refining techniques that empower scientists and communicators to reach audiences in brand-new and appealing methods.

_{Top image: Heritage Auctions}