timeline, preventing both Sherman's death and the wife's accidental killing.) Later he met his first wife, Beth, a Navy Nurse Corps officer. Al and Beth were married, though due to various duty assignments, they spent little time together. It was during these years that Al would be involved in the Apollo Program and was a member of the crew of Apollo 8. Al also had become involved in the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s, going on marches and suffering beatings; he implied in "The Color of Truth" that he had been part of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march. In the late 1960s, Al began a series of tours in the Vietnam War, and the distance between him and Beth started to put a strain on his marriage. In one mission, he saw Chip get shot down. In early 1969, Al was captured by the Việt Cộng and would be a prisoner of war until 1973. The torture he went through convinced him that there was a Devil. By the time of his release, the Navy had declared Al as missing in action and presumably killed in action; after a period of mourning, Beth remarried, which a heartbroken Al learned after his repatriation. In the years that followed, Al would rise through the naval ranks, eventually becoming a rear admiral. Much of his later military career is unknown. The two-star flag rank is the highest permanent rank in the US military during peacetime, explaining how he is able to retain his naval rank while devoting the majority of his time to Project Quantum Leap. Over the years, he would marry four more times, each marriage ending in divorce, as he sought to fill the gap left behind by the great love of Al's life, Beth. (His increasingly large backstory often gave him skills and knowledge that would be relevant to the latest episode. By the fourth season, the show would sometimes let Sam Beckett lampshade things, such as snapping "don't tell me you were a gunslinger in the Navy" in "The Last Gunfighter") As his personal life started deteriorating, Al started to abuse alcohol. While working on the Starbright Project, Al first met Dr. Sam Beckett when, in a drunken rage, Al was beating up a vending machine. The two became fast friends, and Sam started to help Al turn his life around. Sam and Al