All of the enlisted men of Team Viking end up with food poisioning. Goldman is forced, because of that, to take on an assignment himself that he had intended to assign to someone else, drafting Anderson to come along. They pick up a deserter who Anderson has known as the ""ideal"" soldier for years. As the two men spend time together they talk about their early meetings, etc. Zeke gets a letter from Johnson. The next day Digby (the deserter) escapes before Anderson and Goldman get there but is recaptured. They start off to Long Binh prison. Digby has been a soldier for 14 years but gave it up when some soldiers started to give him and his Vietnamese wife a hard time. Digby ends up saving their lives, a number of times, and he ends up ""accidentally"" escaping.