Harold Fitzpatrick is what some people might call a Missouri redneck or a hillbilly. Those people, of course, probably didn’t know that his mother and father both held doctoral degrees in science. She was an environmental research chemist, and he was a wildlife biologist. Harold had inherited much of their curiosity. He knew the woods, creeks, and rivers of St. Francois County like the back of his hand. What he didn’t know was what he wanted to do with his life.

Like so many before him, he looked to the United States Marine Corps for both guidance and maturity. Unintentionally, that choice also separated him from his high school sweetheart and sent him on a journey into the jungles of Southeast Asia, the deserts of the Middle East, and the heart of the drug trafficking business in Central America.