The Hero Code summary

It was 1968, over halfway through the Vietnam War, when a small US reconnaissance team landed on Hill 146 in the Quan Duc Valley of Vietnam. It was a strategic position, and the Vietcong didn’t want it occupied by enemy forces.

In a last-ditch attempt to fend off their enemies, the Vietcong had covered what remained of the hill with mines and punji pits – deep, hidden holes harboring poison-tipped spears. But that wasn’t all they had in store. When the US reconnaissance team landed, the Vietcong began a ferocious assault, using rockets, explosives, and grenades against the men.

Bespectacled, short, and walking with a slight limp, Navy SEAL Captain Ted Grabowsky didn’t conform to most people’s image of an all-American warrior. Vice Admiral Joe Metcalf, on the other hand, did. He was a straight-talking, gruff, no-nonsense serviceman. When Grabowsky proposed an ambitious two-year budget for the SEALs, the vice admiral wasn’t averse to giving him an intense grilling.

After all, Vietnam was over, and the Cold War was in full swing. What good were SEALS when the conflict had turned nuclear? The vice admiral scoffed his way through Grabowsky’s presentation, then finally spoke: “I want to help,” he growled, “but do you really need all this money?”

When James Patrick Allison was 11 years old, he lost his mother to cancer. Not long afterward, he lost two of his uncles to the same disease. Like anyone else, Allison grieved. But instead of brooding on his loss forever, he decided to do something. Allison was going to find a cure for cancer.

As a young man, he enrolled at the University of Texas, where he studied T-cells – a type of cell in the human body that attacks infections and regulates the immune system. At the time, it occurred to him that T-cells could play a role in fighting cancer.

The late Republican Senator John McCain hailed from a military family – a naval one, to be precise. In fact, he was the son and grandson of top-ranking Navy four-star admirals. With relations like that, it came as no surprise when McCain graduated from the United States Naval Academy and shipped out to fight in the Vietnam War.

What was staggering, though, was how seriously the young McCain took his duties. In July of 1967, the young serviceman’s first year in Vietnam, a fire erupted aboard his aircraft carrier, and McCain was seriously wounded while pulling a fellow aviator to safety.

Over the course of the Vietnam war, more than one thousand Americans were taken prisoner. Their treatment at the hands of their Vietnamese enemies could be brutal, as John McCain knew all too well. Kept captive for years on end, they were subjected to beatings and isolation, and sometimes were even refused food and water.

As time went on, many men lost hope, and their initial faith that they’d soon return home faded with the years. But then, in November 1970, an Army Special Forces unit called the Green Berets launched a rescue operation to liberate 60 prisoners of war.