Isaac Camacho

This military biography recounts the incredible story of a Green Beret who survived capture and torture in Vietnam before escaping to freedom.

Raised in El Paso, Texas, Isaac Camacho enlisted in the U.S. Army as a young man and soon joined the ranks of an elite Special Forces Group. He served with distinction in the Vietnam War, training Civilian Irregular Defense Guard personnel at a camp near Cambodia's Parrot's Beak region. But in November of 1963, he was captured by the Viet Cong and subjected to nearly two years of excruciating torture.


Shackled, worked like an animal, and routinely interrogated, Camacho somehow managed to plan and execute a harrowing escape. On his long trek through enemy territory, he endured hellish jungle conditions and suffered from malaria, beriberi, and hepatitis. Yet he through it all he remained determined to live up to the Military Code of Conduct and to fight another day for his country.