Dick Stratton of Quincy, Massachusetts joined the National Guard for a year in high school, then joined a religious order for six years while considering the priesthood (which was “good preparation for six years in prison”). After earning a college degree he enlisted in the Navy as a naval aviation cadet. Upon earning his wings, he took a regular Navy commission. In October 1966, Stratton deployed to the South China Sea as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot aboard the USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). In January 1967, after 22 unclassified missions, and a number of unofficial classified missions over Laos, his plane was destroyed when his own defective Aero 7D rockets collided and exploded right in front of him. As he remembers it the enemy gets no credit at all: “I shot myself down.” He parachuted out and upon touching the ground was immediately captured by the angry villagers he had been bombing. He served as a POW for more than six years. Stratton describes his adventures with a glint in his eye, recalling rice paddies, rooster tails, and benjo ditches; the tap code, a robot bow, telling lies and the truth to his torturers, but making them “work for each and every item. He speaks highly of such illustrious leaders as James Bond Stockdale (“notice that middle name”), colleagues like Mike Estocin, and fellow prisoners like Douglas Brent Hegdahl III. He speaks not so highly of folks like Robert Strange McNamara (“notice that middle name”) and Walter "Crankcase" Cronkite. Retired Navy Captain Stratton, who would prefer to be called commander, because it “sounds very commanding,” sums up the Vietnamese people rather tidily, “Nothing wrong with the Vietnamese people [including those who captured him]. A lot wrong with the communists.”