David Donavan’s assignment was a remote and lonely posting in the Mekong Delta. He and his four-man team, without aerial support or the comfort of a well-supplied base, had to protect and lead the local village militias against the Vietcong. Once a Warrior King is written with rare perception about his life of uncertainty on that hellish battleground. The dreadful suspense of night patrols in the jungles and swamps, the hand-to-hand fighting in Vietcong ambushes are all vigorously retold. His intimate involvement with the Vietnamese men and women took him deep into the fabric of their war-torn lives and he became part of their native brotherhood – an honorary “warrior king”.

Vietnam