The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of distinction between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.
-- Sir William Francis Butler
Ernest C. Brace was a former Marine hero, banished in disgrace from the Corps. In 1965, while working as a civilian pilot in Laos, he was captured and spent the next two years in a bamboo cage with his legs in stocks. His bravery did not diminish when transferred to Hanoi where he maintained the military code of conduct, refusing early release so that others might go free. This is the true, firsthand account of America's longest-held civilian POW in Vietnam, his eight years in captivity, and eventual return to honor.