Day of the Dawg: A Football Memoir

The word ‘hero’ is used far too often. So is the word ‘courage.’ In the case of Capt. Eugene McDaniel and his hellish experience during the Vietnam War, neither word accurately describes his struggle in enduring the horrors of being one of the most brutalized Prisoner of War (POW).

When his plane was shot down over the skies of Vietnam, McDaniel would be captured and spend six agonizing years as a POW in Hanoi Hilton. His captors used barbaric and sadistic torture techniques on him, but McDaniel remained a source of hope and strength for his fellow POWs by clinging to his faith in even the darkest of hours.

In this 35^th anniversary edition of Scars and Stripes, a whole new generation of Americans will come to understand the power of prayer, belief, and devotion to God had in sustaining McDaniel during his six years as a POW in Vietnam. 

George Rowe’s gritty and harrowing story offers not only a glimpse into the violent world of the motorcycle outlaw, but a gripping tale of self-sacrifice and human redemption that would be the stuff of great fiction—if it weren’t all true. Rowe had been a drug dealer, crystal meth addict, barroom brawler, and convicted felon, but when he witnessed the Vagos brutally and senselessly beat his friend over a pool game, everything changed.

Rowe decided to pay back his Southern California hometown for the sins of his past by taking down the gang that was terrorizing it. He volunteered himself as an undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and vowed to dismantle the brotherhood from the inside out, becoming history’s first private citizen to voluntarily infiltrate an outlaw motorcycle gang for the U.S. government.

As “Big George,” a full-patched member of the Vagos, Rowe spent three brutal years juggling a double life—riding, fighting, and nearly dying alongside the brothers who he secretly hoped to put away for good. During this time, Rowe also became entwined in a tumultuous relationship with a struggling addict named Jenna, never once revealing that he was actually working for the Feds. The road to redemption was not an easy ride. Rowe lost everything: his family, his business, his home—even his identity.