Dennis Thompson enlisted in the Army in 1959 at age 17, did basic training at Fort Ord, California, then advanced infantry training at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he became a radio repairman. He then went to Germany, where he attended the Seventh Army Noncommissioned Officers Academy at Bad Tolz, which was also where the 10th Special Forces Group was headquartered. Being really impressed with those guys, he decided he wanted to become one of them. After six years of enlistment, attaining the age of 22, and fulfilling all the other prerequisites, young Thompson joined the Special Forces. In 1965, he volunteered to go to Vietnam, where he was assigned to Detachment A-222, Company B, 5th Special Forces Group, training South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) forces at Dong Tre. On his second tour, starting in 1967, Thompson was with Detachment A-101, Mobile Strike Force Command, or MIKE Force, at Lang Vei. He gives a vivid and thrilling first-hand account of the battle at Lang Vei, of disabling Russian tanks, of getting captured and escaping several times, of being beating nearly to death and being tortured. He describes his love for adventure and the Vietnamese people, his hatred for Farnsworth (a “goddamned death camp"), “the Cheese,” and his guard An. He tells of 913 days in solitary confinement in a two-and-a-half foot wide by six foot long by five foot high concrete cell, painted black inside. He discusses rats, geckos, Blazing Saddles, the Elephant Battalion, the Hanoi Hilton, and the Playboy Club. He returned home in 1973.