Once Upon a Time in Mexico

He was once America’s ally. He became its most wanted man.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson sent the U.S. Army into Mexico to hunt Pancho Villa—a rebel general, a folk hero, and now a bitter enemy. What followed was no simple manhunt, but a tangled campaign through brutal deserts, hostile villages, and the bloody aftershocks of the Mexican Revolution.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico traces the path from revolutionary brotherhood to betrayal, through the eyes of those who lived it—including a young George S. Patton, who fired the first shot of his legendary military career on Mexican soil. It was America’s first modern war: planes flew, trucks rolled, and history turned on rugged wheels. This book dives into the forgotten war that prepared America for the Great War to come—while unraveling the haunting question: how does a hero become a hunted man?

Neither pro-American nor pro-Mexican, this is a story told from the crossroads—where myth and history collide.