Raised in an industrial city during the 1930s Depression a young man eventually leaves to find adventure overseas and a passage into manhood ... This book takes the reader through the gates of delinquency, cheerless military service, struggles, failures and troubling acts of Cold War espionage, and concluding with ten consecutive years in war-torn Vietnam ... Parts of this story should not be read by the moralist or the squeamish ... The writer of this memoir has resided in foreign countries for well over 50 years and continues to do so today on an island off the coast of Singapore ... He is an eye witness to the 1968 Tet Offensive ... The most controversial parts ... begin well before Vietnam in the United States where the young man was often sidetracked by passion, crime, poverty, recklessness, and drawn into subversive activities no patriotic American should admire ... This tome you hold in your hand may be a kind of "Catcher in the Rye" for mature adults."--Jacket pages iii and iv.