Approximately 600 American pilots were shot down in Laos, but just 10 or so came out alive. Mr. Dengler's account is like a vivid nightmare. I read it years ago after discovering it at the library and have never forgotten it. It's even more haunting to think of the fate of those pilots who survived yet never escaped.

This is a fantastic (almost unbelievable) book that should be read by every high school student in this country. This is an exceptional story illustrating what Vietnam War POW's had to endure. Mr Dengler is a hero and a credit to the Navy and our Armed Services. Awesome!! His determination to escape from his captors and return home was truly inspirational. I hope to meet this man and shake his hand someday.

A superb autobiographical study of men held prisoner by the Pathet Lao. This work is certainly as good as any written by the POWs in Hanoi. Well worth trying to locate and read.

I had met the author about 10 years ago through a family relative. Did not know of his hair raising Viet Nam saga until after several months later. I received a signed copy from him and started reading late one night. I had to pry the book out of my hands at 3 am. I finished the book the next evening. It is the most riveting account I have ever read. A tremendous account of triumph over an impossible situation. By a grateful friend.

As a US Navy SEAL in the post-Viet Nam era, I had heard Dengler's name often mentioned as a pioneer in the development of survival, evasion, resistance and escape (SERE) training. I was fascinated by reading about Dengler's actual experiences; those same events and challenges that were so costly for him personally but that provided a cornerstone in the training of others who may one day face similar trials.

Having already heard this account of the horrors encountered by Dieter many years ago and once again last spring, the book is just as the author tells it in person, full of viciousness by his tormentors, the amazing trek through the jungle, and the brilliance of this prisoner's mind, despite the odds against him, in having studied his captors' environmental adaptation and using what he learned to enable his own against-all-odds fight to live. This man practised survival under all circumstances during his entire life and possessed an uncanny ability to recognize danger even before it materialized. Through his ingenuity he alone conquered the enemy and the elements and this makes for such a fascinating tale. It is survival at its purest and most admirable. A man and a mission never to be forgotten.