Once upon a Distant War

William Walter Prochnau was born in Everett, Washington on August 9, 1937. He graduated from Everett Junior College and Seattle University. He was a sportswriter for The Everett Herald before moving to The Seattle Times. He left The Times in 1974 and founded the short-lived Daily Journal-American. He was the political editor of The Post-Intelligencer in Seattle before becoming a full-time reporter for The Washington Post. In 1996, he became a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

His Vanity Fair article Adventures in the Ransom Trade became the basis for the movie Proof of Life starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe. Prochnau wrote several books including Once Upon a Distant War: Young War Correspondents and the Early Vietnam Battles and Trinity's Child, which inspired the script for By Dawn's Early Light starring James Earl Jones. Prochnau died from coronary artery disease on March 28, 2018 at the age of 80.

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