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? In this first volume of his three-part In Wolf's Clothing collection of short stories, the early events of the author's unlikely rise from a trombone-playing high school band nerd to an elite U.S. Air Force Combat Controller, circa 1977 and 78, are chronicled in sequential detail. From his first days of Basic Training and Air Traffic Control School, through his introduction to Combat Control and his experiences going through the Army's Jump School, these 18 vignettes follow his step-by-step progression into these exotic realms--from civilian, to student, to rookie paratrooper--as lived by a dorky misguided wannabe, and later retold by a self-deprecating middle-aged smart-ass. What's not to like?