Rod Serling, veteran: 'Twilight Zone' creator's unearthed story examines human cost of war

Entering the Twilight Zone was always an eerie and unpredictable journey, but TV viewers could count on one constant: the familiar voice and face of creator Rod Serling.

Serling died in 1975, but fans now have a new story from him to sink their teeth into. “First Squad, First Platoon,” a short story written in his early 20s, was published for the first time in May's issue of The Strand Magazine, a quarterly that runs previously unpublished works by literary masters and new fiction by modern authors.  

“First Squad, First Platoon” offers an unusually personal glimpse into Serling's World War II experience, where he served in the 11th Airborne of the 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment in the Philippines. The story is a chilling look at the impact of war, and he dedicated it "To My Children," even before he had any kids of his own.

How a rare Rod Serling war story was uncovered

Amy Boyle Johnston, writer of the biography “Unknown Serling,” spent years poring through his archives across the country. On one journey to the Wisconsin Historical Society's public collection more than 20 years ago, she came across “First Squad, First Platoon” and shared it with his family. 

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Now, it's available to the public in a special edition of The Strand. Editor-in-chief Andrew Gulli, who specializes in finding lost manuscripts, is a long-time “Twilight Zone” fan. Often, works found posthumously need heavy editing, he says. With Serling’s story, he was shocked at “the work of a very mature writer.”

“When I read this, I said to myself ‘My God,’” Gulli says. “You know how this governed the rest of his life.”

“First Squad, First Platoon” is five short chapters, each focusing on one squad member – and their relationships with each other – and how they died.

This is not the Serling we know of “Twilight Zone” fame. When he wrote this story in his early 20s at Antioch College, Johnston said he was writing quietly, as a reflection. At the time, he could not have comprehended how successful he would be in later years. His daughter, Anne Serling, told USA TODAY he never thought his writing would be remembered.

“He wanted this to be understood on a small emotional level about who he was as a man and what he had witnessed,” Johnston says. “When we think of the public persona of who Rod Serling is, even though he was shrouded in mystery, Serling is having an intimate conversation.”

This is particularly clear in the story’s dedication to his future children. He urges them to remember the horrors of war – the shrapnel, the mustard gas – in the same breath as patriotism and honor.

“Human beings don’t like to remember unpleasant things,” he wrote. “They gird themselves with the armor of wishful thinking, protect themselves with a shield of impenetrable optimism, and, with few exceptions, seem to accomplish their ‘forgetting’ quite admirably.”

An early look at Serling's recurring themes in 'The Twilight Zone'

Serling was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his service. He didn’t talk about the war, like so many other veterans, Serling told USA TODAY. But she still saw the effects it had on her father, the nightmares that kept him awake.

“To think, after all he’s been through and combined with his young age, to have the wherewithal to be able to articulate that incredibly as he did,” Serling says. It’s a stark contrast from the letters home that he wrote, which sound like “a kid writing from summer camp” asking for gum, candy and underwear. His father died while Serling was overseas and he came home to a "completely unknown world," his daughter says.

The impact of war would continue as a theme throughout Serling’s work in "Twilight Zone" episodes like “The Purple Testament” and "A Quality of Mercy" and Studio One’s “The Strike.” Johnston says Serling was proud of his service but would never stop trying to make sense of what happened to him and so many other young men.

The names he uses in “First Squad, First Platoon” are taken from many of the men he fought alongside in WWII. They are names that continue to show up in his later TV work. One character in the story is even named Serling.

“He was writing this from an adult point of view, saying ‘I don’t want to forget these men, I don’t want to forget what happened to us, and you should understand this about me later,’” Johnston says. “To the viewers, to us, the public, he always reminded us war came at the cost of lives.”

It's poignant, amid the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine wars. Serling says her dad would be “horrified” and “apoplectic” at the relevancy of “First Squad, First Platoon” today.

“My father cared deeply about people and felt we could do better. I believe his legacy has survived as long as it has because he dealt with moral issues – racism, mob mentality, marginalization ... that are (sadly) still so relevant and prevalent today,” Serling wrote in a follow-up email to USA TODAY.

She said it reminds her of a quote of his: "Human beings must involve themselves in the anguish of other human beings. This, I submit to you, is not a political thesis at all. It is simply an expression of what I would hope might be ultimately a simple humanity for humanity's sake."