The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 45: The Biscuit Bomb

Episode Date: March 7, 2017

Melvin's Stories always had a surprise ending - this one surprised even Melvin.

This is the way I heard it. Private Rodman appeared to be constipated. His expression was one of perpetual concentration, punctuated from time to time by a crooked smile that often appeared, apropos of nothing. His best friend, on the other hand, Private Levy, was the undisputed life of the platoon, a consummate storyteller.

Private Levy could transport his fellow soldiers out of this God-forsaken jungle with a simple tale. Indeed, Melvin Levy's love of a good story would not only impact the lives of his fellow soldiers, it would launch the careers of Dennis Hopper and Robert Redford, Robert Duval, and Lee Marvin, William Shatner, Peter Falk, Elizabeth Montgomery, Jack Klugman, Carol Burnett, the list goes on. In fact, you could argue that shows like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad and many other modern classics would have never come to be without the extraordinary contribution of this 20-year-old private in the Second World War. Of the many stories told by Private Levy, though, his most impactful unfolded beneath a palm tree

on the bloody beach of a tiny island that most Americans had never even heard of. Private Rodman was there that day, December 18, 1944, along with the rest of the platoon, hanging on Melvin Levy's every word. The boys of the 5-11th had spent the last week fighting their way through the jungle, crawling through mud, slithering under barbed wire, and dying in record numbers. They'd lost 50% of their original compliment.

And yet, there, in the midst of all that madness and mayhem stood private levy, holding court under a palm tree in the tropical heat, weaving his spell and getting laughs in a place where laughter was no longer among the indigenous sounds. Private Rodman stood off to the side and marveled at his friend's ability, smiling his crooked smile, and looking vaguely constipated. Meanwhile, 600 feet above their heads and maybe a quarter mile to the south, the bombardier opened the doors of the DC-3. The payload left the plane cleanly and began to accelerate with the velocity one might associate with the 4,200-pound crate of K-rations, dry sausages, chocolate bars, and hard biscuits.

The boys called them biscuit bombs, and with no supply lines to rely upon, these lifesavers floated down from the skies with great anticipation. 600 feet below, the 511th was spellbound as Private Levy warmed up to the climax of his tale. All of his stories seemed to have a surprising twist at the end, and the men had no idea where this one was headed. For a few brief moments, the exhausted soldiers forgot all about the enemy that still surrounded them, as well as their gnawling hunger. They allowed themselves to get lost in Private Levy's unpredictable narrative. Four hundred feet above the beach, the parachute on the biscuit bomb failed to deploy. A hundred feet after that, two tons of airborne grub reached terminal velocity.

A hundred feet later, Private Levy uttered a surprising and hysterical punchline. The men dissolved into fits of laughter and broke into applause. Then, Private Levy took a few steps toward Private Rodman and asked to bum a cigarette Rodman handed him the one he had just lit and fished out another from his fatigues. At that point, the biscuit bomb was 20 feet above the beach and moving at roughly 200 miles an hour. A moment later, it landed directly on private levy. And that was that. The 20-year-old soldier was pulverized by a care package meant to save his life.

and thus the man who would transform television did so not by forming a legendary studio or talent agency he did so by dying a few feet in front of his best friend in the most ironic manner imaginable that evening private rodman the only other Jew in the platoon wrote a eulogy for private levy The next morning, he read that eulogy to the rest of the platoon in his rich, well-modulated baritone. His words carefully measured and delivered with great deliberation, articulated the underlying dread of living in a world utterly beyond his understanding, a world where certainty was simply not for sale, a world where a giant box of biscuits could plummet from the heavy,

and decapitate your best friend. War changes people, and Private Rodman was forever changed by the unlikely demise of Private Melvin Levy. Private Rodman would retain his crooked smile, his stilted delivery, and that vague look of chronic constipation. But from that moment on, the die was cast, because Private Levy's surreal and gruesome. some passing had opened a door through which private Rodman willingly walked, a door to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. That was the moment a young private named Rod Serling began his journey into the Twilight Zone. Anyway, that's the way I heard. considers you an MVP because your

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