Portet was drafted into the army in 1963 and initially trained as an 11-Mike mechanized infantryman despite his qualifications as a commercial pilot and his fluency in Swahili and several other African languages. He volunteers for jump school, qualifies as a parachutist, and is recruited by Sandy Felter as an expert on the Congo. He qualifies as a Green Beret in what is described by General Hanrahan as a "jackleg course" prior to Operation Dragon Rouge, a joint Belgian-American mission to rescue civilians threatened by the Simba rebels in the Congo. Ignoring orders to the contrary, he jumps with the Belgian paratroopers to rescue his mother, sister, and Ursula and Jeffy Craig; and is later decorated by the Belgians, the Congolese, and the army for his valor.