Hotelier, corporate executive, and U.S. Army intelligence officer, Frank M. Brandstetter came to the U.S. at the age of sixteen and worked at immigrant factory jobs until he stumbled into the restaurant and hotel business. Throughout the Depression years, he slowly worked his way up through the ranks until his enlistment in the army in 1940. Whether foiling a mass breakout plot by German POWs in England during the Second World War, leading a small party on a dangerous mission behind German lines to deliver a surrender demand from General Matthew Ridgway to Field Marshall Walther Model, parachuting into battle on D-Day, or confronting an angry Cuban mob intent on destroying the Havana Hilton, Brandstetter evoked the highest commendations from witnesses and supervisors.