How did such a socially inept, unscarred, high school marching band geek, chess club nerd, piano-playing, teetotaling mama's boy wind up with a parachute on his back, a knife in his teeth, and a team of America's finest warriors following him out of an aircraft's jump door into the night?How did he get there? How did he STAY there? And why did he try so hard to do something so out of character for himself? Through the first two volumes (and 42 short stories) of his "In Wolf's Clothing" trilogy, the author chronicled his unlikely rise from naïve teenaged civilian to an elite U.S. Air Force Combat Controller, circa 1977 and 1978. Now here in "Book 3 - The Pretender, " these 18 vignettes describe his final ten months in detail, through his last schools, exercises, and deployments, to the convoluted path he had to follow to get out of the spec ops business when all the rules said he couldn't. It was a wild ride through exotic realms, experienced by a dorky misguided wannabe, then later retold by a self-deprecating middle-aged smart-ass. What's not to like?