Before Mike Pellow held the U.S. Embassy in Panama through a night of RPG attacks during the U.S. invasion (Episode 12), he was a young sergeant on his first MSG tour in Cold War Leningrad — and he was already finding trouble.

A night out with the wrong people ended with Mike and a fellow Marine in a Soviet holding room, a man with a gun posted at the door, and the phone getting ripped out of their hands every time they tried to call the consulate. That was just the beginning. In Copenhagen, the woman he was dating turned out to be working as an East German spy.

Then Clayton Lonetree turned himself in and Mike's name kept coming up during the investigation.

What makes this episode more than just a collection of close calls is what Mike did each time — and what the people around him chose to do with the evidence in front of them. An RSO who remembered the truth. A battalion commander and a company commander who both believed in Mike. And a Sergeant Major who picked up the phone and changed Mike's entire trajectory with one conversation.

Luck matters in the Marine Corps. So does the company you keep.

Hear Mike's incredible story as a Detachment Commander in Panama on Episode 12.