You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind,

a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.

That's the signpost up ahead, Your next stop, the Twilight Zone.

When Rott Sailing was close to the age that he could leave high school, the USA was fighting in World War II.

Now Sailing was very eager to enlist and he almost actually did it before he graduated from high school until he was talked out of it by a teacher

so he did actually graduate but the morning after he enlisted after his training he served in the 511th parachute infantry regiment of the 11th airborne division

now Serling did actually see combat in the war.

He was like I say an eager soldier but being Jewish he was disappointed that his regiment was

sent to fight the Japanese instead of the Germans. Now it was said of Sailing that he didn't have

the wit or aggression to be a good field soldier and at one point he was

actually moved to the 511th Division's demolition platoon which was nicknamed the

Death Squad because of its high mortality rate so he did see death on a regular

basis and there is a famous story about a time that he was standing

talking to his friends and one of his friends was in the middle of telling a story and ended

up being decapitated by a food crate that fell from above. That man's name was Melvin Levy

and we'll hear his name read

from a list in the episode later on in the episode that we'll be discussing tonight

so Rod sailing was actually wounded several times in the war and he did show a lot

of bravery too on one occasion in Manila the US was systematically clearing the occupied streets and as

they were doing so the locals would throw parties in honor of the soldiers and at one

of these parties it ended up being attacked by the Japanese and apparently sailing

went into the line of fire to rescue a street

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