Once A Warrior King

A classic of counter-insurgency that is assigned and recommended in military circles and leadership courses. 


Once a Warrior King vividly portrays the experience of a U. S. Army officer engaged in the counterinsurgency and counterguerilla war in Vietnam. It is the story of a man with a sense of honor and responsibility that extended beyond his immediate command and encompassed the people of the remote village he had been sent to advise and defend. It is a portrait of a compassionate man and a humane soldier. It is the story of the precarious mental and physical balance all soldiers must maintain through the horrors of war, and it is a story especially relevant today as America and its western allies once again face the challenge of unconventional war. If you would understand these challenges and the men who meet them, read this book. 


David Donovan, a raw and idealistic first lieutenant fresh from the Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, arrived in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam in the spring of 1969. He joined an isolated, five-man team of Americans operating in Tram Chim village on the Plain of Reeds. The team was there to advise village leaders in civic operations and militia leaders in combat operations. Donovan’s team was there to win the counterinsurgency war, which was war in the village. 


In Once A Warrior King, Donvan vividly recreates the suspense of night ambushes and the emotions of man-to-man warfare in the swamps and jungles of the Delta. Donovan became involved with the lives of the villagers of Tram Chim and came to understand much about the Vietnamese culture that formed a matrix around him, its influence in local and national politics, its role in friendships, and the background it played in families torn apart by a tragic war. 


On his return to the Unites States, Donovan found that Vietnam had become a part of him, a part that separated him from his wife and children, his family and friends. Donovan’s chilling account of coming home and of his enormous internal battle is as dramatic as his tales of combat in the Delta. With its powerfully written text and compelling story, this extraordinary book will burn itself into the minds and hearts of readers.