While Cobra Commander's birth name and childhood are unknown, he is believed to be a North American citizen born in the mid-twentieth century. His only known relative, an older brother named Dan, enlisted in the military during the Vietnam War, and volunteered for repeated tours to spare his younger sibling from conscription. During this time, the man who would become Cobra Commander worked as a used car salesman. When Dan returned from Vietnam, he displayed deep psychological trauma, and took to self-destructive behavior, resulting in his death in a car collision with another family. Devastated by the loss of his brother, the future Cobra Commander blamed the family's survivor: another war veteran, against whom the young Cobra Commander formed an elaborate revenge scheme.