The year is 1961. America has a new president, named John F. Kennedy, and a new era the newspapers are calling the Dawn of Camelot. But for ten-year-old Paul Brett, dealing with an abusive father and the immigrant gangs roaming his slum neighborhood of China Slough, America is only a small, dead-end place he is struggling to survive. That is, until the night a mysterious stranger comes out of the darkness to his rescue, and initiates a journey--an unforgettable odyssey--beyond his wildest imagination. From his unlikely beginnings in a brutal California migrant camp, into the darkest underbelly of a distant and unpopular war, to his final and, perhaps, most deadly struggle for survival inside the bowels of a near-medieval military prison, American Warrior follows this amazing journey of one young hero from boyhood to manhood, and from love lost, to his final and most incredible attempts to regain that love. "A fast-paced...thoroughly engrossing story of a journey through pain and violence." Kirkus Reviews