[1][4] Wortzel spent three years in the U.S. Marine Corps before attending college, and then enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1970, during the Vietnam War.

He was assigned to the Army Security Agency in Thailand to monitor Chinese military communications in nearby Vietnam and Laos.

[1][4] From 1988 to 1990, Wortzel was an assistant military attaché at the American Embassy in Beijing, and witnessed and reported on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the subsequent army crackdown.

[1][4] From 1999 to 2006, Wortzel served as Asian Studies Center director and vice president for foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Since 2001, he served for nine terms as a Commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission of the United States Congress.