These memoirs are a 30-year window into the life of someone who patrolled with Marine Recon in the jungles of Vietnam, jumped into action with the Rhodesian Light Infantry's Fire Force, infiltrated guerrilla groups on counterinsurgency operations with the Selous Scouts and later waded through the strife in Beirut. It's not just a war story - though there are stories of three wars of appalling brutality and vengeance embedded in this narrative, each with an analysis of why they occurred and why they came to such a calamitous end for the governments that waged them. But this is also an account of what it was like as an American, as a total stranger in these cultures, living through these bloody and momentous events that occurred across several continents and what people had to endure just to make it from one day to the next. It's a story of survival.