Rarely seen Rod Serling story, "First Squad, First Platoon," draws upon his World War II service
This December marks the centennial of Rod Serling, the late host and writer of the classic TV series “The Twilight Zone.”
NEW YORK (AP) — In a famous “Twilight Zone” episode from the early 1960s, a bloodthirsty World War II commander stationed in the Philippines finds himself transported into the body of a Japanese lieutenant and, to his horror, expected to help kill an entrapped and wounded American platoon.
“What you do to those men in the cave, will it shorten the war by a week, by a day, by an hour?” he pleads to a Japanese officer. ”How many must die before (we) are satisfied?"
For the show's host and writer, Rod Serling, World War II was a trauma he would re-imagine often.
Serling, born 100 years ago this December, served in the 11th Airborne Division in the Philippines and received a Bronze Star for bravery and a Purple Heart for being wounded. He left the war with lasting physical and emotional scars and, like such fellow veterans as Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, with a will to find words for what had happened. He wrote war-related scripts for “Playhouse 90” and other early television drama series and for at least two other “Twilight Zone” stories, including one in which an Army lieutenant can predict who will die next by looking into his soldiers' faces.
