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Cover of Legacy by Wayne Wade, subtitled A Light in the Darkness

Vietnam memoir · King Ranch · 1st Infantry Division

Legacy

A Light in the Darkness

An Old West legacy, a war story, and a legend, by Wayne Wade.

Paperback ISBN 979-8-89835-475-6 · Ebook ISBN 979-8-89835-476-3
Trilogy Christian Publishers · Released August 4, 2026

Order on Amazon Barnes & Noble Press release (PDF)

The Author's Note

The author's note: I went to Vietnam on Nov. 28, 1966, as a naive nineteen-year-old draftee in the 1st Infantry Division. Later, I began documenting my experiences serving in a combat unit. I found that those personal experiences were very different from the stories told by the media and other returning veterans. Curious, I began to research facts on the internet myself. My commander, then Lt. Col. Richard Cavazos, grew up on the King Ranch. Its co-founder, Henrietta King, greatly influenced the King Ranch's culture by promoting the values of her Christian faith. Young Richard grew up in that environment. I believe that Christian environment helped Richard become the great tactical leader he became in Vietnam, as well as Korea. Under Richard's strong leadership, my battalion became a microcosm of orderly, successful tactical outcomes time and time again. In the book, I use my personal story and the stories of the men I served with to show how practical Christian values can produce a stable, winning atmosphere even under the extreme stress of heavy combat. I believe the seven years of research and numerous veteran interviews allowed me to bring a depth to my story that I otherwise would have missed.   

Read excerpts

King Ranch Connection

An intimate character analysis of Richard and Henrietta King and how they came together to build a lifegiving legacy that saved the lives of my Dogface battalion over a hundred years later.

A Portal to Hell

Wayne's first deadly experience in combat and his first encounter with the voice of the Holy Spirit, Who's warning saved him and his buddies from instant death.

Alexander Haig

Thoughtful insight into the mind of a great American leader, as his Blue Spaders fought along side our Dogface battalion, in operation Junction City.

Little Man, Big Man

My definition of, and reasons why, Little Man Syndrome is so detrimental to any organization, but especially the military.

The Voice of God

A powerful testimony that shows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the importance of listening to and obeying the Holy Spirit.

Ong Thanh Creek, a Perfect Storm

A thoughtful explanation, taken from the facts, and Wayne's combat experience, for why this diaster happened to the Black Lions and not my Dogface Battalion.

Vo Minh Triet

Insights into the mind of one communist commander as never before revealed.

Chapters in the book

Who the book is for

This book is for readers searching for a truthful understanding of why we lost the Vietnam War. That reason is not hard to know. As a nation, we have stopped trusting God. Any nation that stops trusting God quickly becomes blind to the truth. My book explains the core elements of God's truth and how a not-so-God-fearing man applied the truths he learned growing up on the King Ranch to bring victory after victory to our Dogface battalion. However, one battalion alone cannot win wars. Without God's truth, a nation loses all perspective. The Vietnamese people were not our enemy. The godless communist ideology was our enemy in Vietnam, and it is still our enemy today. Since the end of the Second World War, the real enemy of our free way of life is not a nation, but the communist ideology and its second cousin, Islam.