He served as a Green Beret in the U.S. Army, Paramilitary Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and finally as a mercenary soldier.

Bacon is remembered as a talented eccentric whose hatred of communism was so great he disobeyed orders to refrain from combat while he served in Vietnam as a member of MACV-SOG.

He is remembered as a skinny man with very wide shoulders, a piercing stare from under the brim of an ugly floppy hat, and a reputation for eccentricity.

Instead, outraged by denial of the chance to directly battle communism, he went absent without leave southward to Command and Control Central, and finagled his way onto MACV-SOG's Recon Team Illinois.

Team Illinois was inserted only 20 minutes after the bombing, with the intention of capturing a stunned enemy soldier for military intelligence interrogation.

His offbeat behavior at Camp Peary bothered his CIA handlers, as Bacon carried around his pet gerbils during training, chewed incessantly on a toothbrush, and secured his Rolex watch with a cord for a wristband.

Using the radio call sign Kayak, he led his mixed band of Lao and Thai irregulars into battle, only to be chastised for risking himself.

He stated that Bacon would strip naked at bedtime, then lie in his bunk through the night crunching crackers and reading obscure books and articles.

[7] It took Bacon a couple of tries to join the mercenaries being hired by the National Liberation Front of Angola in 1975; they suspected him of being a CIA plant.

Despite his becoming aware that the mercenary force was poorly organized and supported, with few members, many of dubious martial ability, Bacon remained committed to crossing the border into the fighting in Angola.

[8] On February 14, 1976, in a symbolic act of resistance, the mercenaries decided to block the MPLA's mechanized advance by blowing up a concrete highway bridge.

They were fleeing the scene in a Land Rover when they ran into the rear stake-bed truck of an enemy column of dozens of vehicles.