Lewis Sorley was born at West Point into an Army family. He attended grammar school just outside the gate of Fort Sam Houston, and high school at the Texas Military Institute, both in San Antonio, Texas, which he regards as his hometown. He graduated from West Point and was commissioned in the Army in 1956. After attending the Officer’s Basic Course and armor school at Fort Knox, Kentucky, he went to Airborne and Jumpmaster schools at Fort Benning, Georgia before joining the 2d Armored Cavalry Division at Fort Meade, Maryland and later Germany. He spent three years on the faculty at West Point, then in 1966 Sorley deployed to Vietnam as an individual replacement. He was initially assigned as a planner, G3, with I Field Force at Nha Trang, and was involved in early U.S. efforts to support the Vietnamese government pacification efforts, an assignment which he enjoyed a lot, and for which he was awarded the Legion of Merit. He was later assigned as XO to 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, 25th Infantry Division near Pleiku in the Central Highlands. Sorley fondly recalls two little girls showing him around the Saigon Zoo, skinning a tiger, sleeping through a mortar attack (which impressed the troops), steak night at the 5th Special Forces Group headquarters in Nha Trang, R&R in Hong Kong, and a smoked Christmas turkey from Macy’s for his sister. He remembers a bridge collapse on Christmas Eve, a reply by endorsement letter to the battalion commander, an interaction with Bob Hope in Cincinnati, a letter from famous tenor Richard Tucker, and a colonel’s thirst for a Silver Star. Sorley also discusses MEDCAPs and rice wine ceremonies, semi-cooked chicken, loom weaving, and gin and tonics filled up with scotch.