Military career

Cain was born and raised in the Rocky Mountains

Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...

 of Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

. In 1972, despite a relatitvely high draft

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 number of 363, he volunteered for the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

, where he served as a US Army military policeman until 1973. He also served as an MP in Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

 at the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center

Fitzsimons Army Medical Center

The Fitzsimons Army Medical Center was a medical facility of the United States military during the 20th century located on in Aurora, Colorado...

, then in Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 with the 281st MPs at Amphoe Sattahip

Amphoe Sattahip

Sattahip is a district in the province Chonburi, Thailand. It is located at the southern tip of the province, close to the tourism center Pattaya.-Geography:...

/Vayama, and in South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 with the 110th MPs at Daejeon

Daejeon

Daejeon is South Korea's fifth largest metropolis and the provincial capital of Chungnam. Located in the center of the country, Daejeon had a population of over 1.5 million in 2010. It is at the crossroads of Gyeongbu railway, Honam railway, Gyeongbu Expressway, and Honam Expressway. Within the...

. In 1975, he left with an honorable military discharge

Military discharge

A military discharge is given when a member of the armed forces is released from their obligation to serve.-United States:Discharge or separation should not be confused with retirement; career U.S...

 and the rank of sergeant

Sergeant

Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

.

He returned to Colorado where he became a state trooper

State police

State police are a type of sub-national territorial police force, particularly in Australia and the United States. Some other countries have analogous police forces, such as the provincial police in some Canadian provinces, while in other places, the same responsibilities are held by national...

 in north metro Denver and subsequently a city cop in suburban Thornton, Colorado

Thornton, Colorado

The city of Thornton is a Home Rule Municipality in Adams and Weld counties in the U.S. state of Colorado and a suburb of the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Thornton is northeast of the state's capital, Denver. The United States Census Bureau that the city population...

. During his ten years as a police officer, he worked a variety of assignments, yet none stayed with him as much as his tour of duty

Tour of duty

In the Navy, a tour of duty is a period of time spent performing operational duties at sea, including combat, performing patrol or fleet duties, or assigned to service in a foreign country....

 in Vietnam.

Books

Cain's experiences in Vietnam inspired him to write a non-fiction manuscript entitled Saigon Alley. After nearly every publisher in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 rejected the proposed book, Zebra Books' Michael Seidman (coincidentally also an ex-MP) offered Cain a four book contract, but only if he would fictionalize his manuscript and increase the sex and violence. This ultimately became the cult classic

Cult Classic

Cult Classic is a Blue Öyster Cult studio recording released in 1994, containing remakes of many of the band's previous hits.-Track listing:# " The Reaper" - 5:05# "E.T.I...

 Saigon Commandos series, which, beginning in 1983, ran to 12 books. Book 9 of this series was made into a film, called Saigon Commandos http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093906/ by Roger Corman

Roger Corman

Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...

's Concorde Studios.

Cain went on to write the War Dogs series for Zebra, using the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Nik Uhernik. He then wrote the first eight books in Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...

' Chopper-1 series, under the pseudonym Jack Hawkins. He also penned three books in the Able Team

Able Team

Able Team is a series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers. It is a spin-off of the Executioner series created by Don Pendleton....

 series, which was a spin-off of the immensely popular Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan, alias The Executioner, is a fictional character who has been serialized in over six hundred novels with sales of more than 200 million, according to Amazon.com. Created by Don Pendleton, Bolan made his first appearance on the printed page in 1969's War Against the Mafia...

 Exceutioner novels.

He wrote the final installment in the Vietnam Ground Zero series, (published as Zebra Cube in the Heroes trilogy, using the pseudonym Robert Baxter. then created and wrote the six-book series Little Saigon (only four books of which were published by Lynx Books of New York before Lynx folded).

Private investigator

After writing over 30 books, Cain pulled the plug on his word processor in 1990 and became a private investigator

Private investigator

A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...

 in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. He began teaching the Learning Annex's Course #523: How To Get Anything On Anybody in the mid-1990s, and wrote two investigative manuals to go along with it: Trick Questions (And Other Trade Secrets of an L.A. County P.I.) and So You Wanna Be A Private Eye.