Latino pop star Marc Anthony is keen to track down the military man who helped him wiggle out of his Air Force contract and follow his music dreams when he was a teenager.
The I Need To Know hitmaker joined the military when he turned 17 at the insistence of his mother, who felt sure her son wouldn't be able to make a living as a singer - and then he landed a record deal.
He recalls, "I took the physical... and I was in the delayed entry programme and I got a recording contract two weeks before I was supposed to leave and I didn't know if I would be able to get out because I had already sworn in.
"There was this lieutenant colonel... and he said, 'Good luck in your civilian career'... I still have the letter. I would love to contact him and thank him."
But ambitious Anthony insists he would have made big waves in the military: "I would have been a general now... I would have been the joint chief of staff; I would have been something right now."