"We narrowed it down between Santa Fe and Boulder," Don said. "Then we were sitting in a restaurant in San Diego, debating, Santa Fe or Boulder, Santa Fe or Boulder, when, like a voice from God, someone said, ‘Boulder, of course!’ It was our waiter who’d just graduated from CU. We did pick Boulder, and we never looked back. We found our house in Niwot right after my first book [in 1991]." 
 
So far he has published nine non-fiction books, including two New York Times bestsellers. The Last Man on the Moon with Gene Cernan, was published in April 1999 and is now in its sixth hardback printing. 

Currently, he’s working on his tenth non-fiction book. He also has published a novel, Appointment with the Squire. A Hollywood production company optioned his unpublished novel The Gris-Gris Man.

Don is originally from Savannah, Georgia. His parents wanted him to be an engineer, but since neither math nor engineering was to his liking, he went to the University of Georgia to study journalism. 

While a student, Don worked at the local newspaper in Athens, Georgia as the only reporter. "We had three editors and one reporter. So, I was the sports reporter, the society reporter, the police reporter, and politics, too. I did it all. I could be at a wedding one minute, and a murder the next. . . . 

"Then I went back to my hometown, and got a job at the Savannah Morning News for awhile," he said. "I got fired. The city editor and I had some disagreements. He took me into a room one day and said, ‘Davis, you may be the greatest vacuum cleaner salesman the world has ever seen, but you’ll never be a journalist.’ I said okay. 

"I didn’t tell him that the UPI [United Press International] had already called me from Atlanta a couple of days before, and offered me a job. 

"The UPI was the rest of my career, except for one stop at the St. Petersburg Times in 

Florida. UPI at the time was like CNN. We were small, dynamic, had genius writers, absolute magic floated from their fingertips. For a cub reporter to be in that kind of environment surrounded by those people, was dynamite. 

"My first assignment was the civil rights movement, which was exploding. I had to go all over Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia and meet people like Martin Luther King and George Wallace. I was 23 years old and I was right in the middle of the biggest story in America.

"I covered Selma for two years before anyone knew where Selma was. And all the other little dark places in the south. I was carrying a pistol on assignment, got beat up a couple of times. It was a very dicey time in our history, and of course me being from the south, they thought I was a traitor. 

"I was straight out of south Georgia, and had a really thick accent. I was considered a troublemaker. I wasn’t there to please these people. 

"It was a transcending moment for me. I grew up with segregation. And suddenly I was seeing the real ugly side of it. These people were being denied their rights. To experience it on that level really made a change in me. Things I had just assumed were right all my life - authority…the police . . .the mayor…And now they were lying. And they were hurting people…

"It set me on the path of not necessarily challenging authority, but certainly questioning it. And that was my job." 

Don had a chance to cover Cape Kennedy as the space program was gearing up to send men to the moon. "They [the UPI] put together special teams for the big space shots. I was chosen for several of them including Apollo 10, [the flight] before the moon landing and then the Apollo 11, which was the moon landing. 

"We’d watch the launch at the Cape, and we’d fly off to Houston and cover the mission there. My job for Apollo 11 was to write [down] the first words of the first man on the moon…

"I’m sitting with the president of UPI over [one] shoulder, and the editor over my shoulder. . . . I am totally aware of how important this is, and Neil Armstrong steps off and he says, ‘That’s one small step for man, one….’ 

"There was a level change in the middle of his transmission and the press corps in its entirety came to a halt. Listening to it today, and knowing what he said, and having it straightened out, it’s as clear as a bell. At the time we had no earthly idea that he said, ‘one giant leap for mankind.’ We had to figure it out. We’d hoped he’d say something easy."

Don’s next job was as a field correspondent in Vietnam. "There were two kinds of correspondents, one stayed in Saigon, while field correspondents like myself would go out with full intention of getting into trouble. And if we went to a place where nothing was happening we’d get a helicopter and go someplace else and keep going until we’d hear gunfire. 

 "You’d find the fights, find out what’s going on and come back and talk to the briefers, and officers and the generals and the diplomats, and put together stories. My preference was for combat. Other people talked to the diplomats. 

"I didn’t go over there to be a rah rah person for American policy that was questionable at the time. At the same time real people were getting killed. My focus was on those real people and the terrible things they had to endure. Many of them were being mistreated through a thing called non-combat deaths, which were lies. That’s basically what got me expelled. 

"I was saying that thousands more American soldiers were killed in Vietnam than were actually being recognized by the U.S. government and I was documenting this. I was very proud when the Vietnam wall went up that they had the number that I was advocating rather then the number that the government was advocating. 

"I like to think that I was instrumental [in bringing this issue to the forefront] because it affected the benefits of the survivors and the honor that went to those who fell in combat. What seems so black and white, isn’t necessarily the truth. Statistics were twisted.  "I never lost respect for the men on the ground and in the air, the men who were fighting. But I sure lost a lot of respect for the leaders in positions of trust and authority, who would outright lie to me and through me to the American people. 
 "After about a year in-country, I was able to really get around. I had my sources. I was able to go out and cover a firefight and get back in time for the briefing and watch them stand up there and lie to us. And I would challenge them. 

"After two years, they’d had enough of me. It was time to make a statement and throw a journalist out and I happened to be the lucky one."

According to Don the U.S. State Department wanted him out and the South Vietnamese government obliged. "A Vietnamese briefer was a good friend of mine. He was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army. [As part of his job] he stood up that day…and announced…that I was being kicked out for biased and distorted reporting. 

"We went out to dinner that night. He said ‘You want to know the real reason you’re being thrown out?…You ask too many questions.’" 

Despite all of this Don said, "I love Asia. Being a foreign correspondent is about as much fun as you can possibly have with your clothes on." 

 Don’s next assignment covering the White House during the Reagan administration lasted two years. His boss had told him, "Always remember the first time you walk up the White House driveway, because after that it becomes a job." 

"He was absolutely right," Don said. "The first time you walk in you are swept away by the majesty, the awe. You imagine the history that goes on. Then you find out you are working in a little tiny room like  a rabbit in a warren and the press is all in there together." 

 Eventually Don tired of politics. The UPI wanted him to become a manager, but he hated the job. He wanted to write. He knew he wanted to write and spent 30 years as a reporter and editor just working with words. 

For Don, working for the UPI and "being competitive with the AP [Associated Press] was wonderful because you were always butting heads. You always had that spur of competition. It wasn’t like you could walk in and be the only reporter there. You always had a person sitting beside you, trying to do your job better. It made us fast. 

"That’s where I learned how to type fast, to think fast, and organize fast. And it really paid off down the road when I started the books. 

"I can do [a book] in incredible time. Research and write. It’s a knack. I found the thing in publishing that I can do quickly, that I was trained for 30 years to do. I didn’t realize it at the time. I would really like to write fiction, but I just fell into this niche with doing non-fiction…And that doesn’t mean I write 
 them all quickly. The moon book took two years." 

 The Last Man on the Moon had its genesis years before, when Don Davis watched Gene Cernan take off on his moon mission. 

 "The great thing about the moon book is that after we finished writing it, I was able to just sit back and push away and let Gene carry the ball as far as appearances. They 
didn’t want to talk to me anyway. They want to talk to the man who walked on the moon. Which is one of the reasons we designed it like we did, with the 30th anniversary and the renewed interest in space."

"What comes next? I don’t know. I’m a mercurial kind of character, and every once in awhile, I like to kick over the checkerboard and start all over. 

 "I’ve been lucky enough to segment my life into decades: In the 60s it was civil rights, in the 70s it was Vietnam, the 80s was the White House, and the 90s were books. 

 "What will happen with the turn of the century? I hope it will be fiction, but I don’t know, and I don’t really worry about it all that much. I’ve had a really good ride, and I’ve been very fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of good people. I could never have accomplished anything without a lot of help from a lot of people."

Don’s wife Robin is one of those people. They met when he was on a trip to California while he was covering the White House. She was handling public relations for the city of Santa Barbara. It didn’t take them long to fall in love and get married. Robin gave up being vice president of a public relations firm, and Don gave up the White House. 

"We got the heck out of politics. She’s been my partner and primary editor. Before anything goes to New York, Robin gives it her stamp. She changes the words and she’s just as good at this as I am."
But last year, Don faced one of the toughest experiences of his life. Robin had kidney disease. "My wife was dying in front of my eyes. Every week it was a little worse. 

"She had a kidney transplant, and I was lucky enough to be able to be the donor. To watch this medical miracle work over the past year has just been fantastic. She is without doubt, the bravest person I’ve ever known. 

 "Now she’s back and it’s a wonderful, marvelous experience. She’s nice and healthy, and I don’t miss my kidney. I kid her that she just keeps me around for body parts."

As for his life today, Don said, "The greatest thing that’s happening this week, is that my little granddaughter is coming here to spend the week with me. 

 "My goals have shifted. You start off and you wonder if you can do it. After a couple of Times best sellers, and getting to know celebrities, and the White House…I’ve done it. I’ve reached for the star and I was lucky enough to catch it. 

"Now, I’d like to work on more quality projects. I don’t know what they are at this time, and that’s fine. 

The rules of the game have changed. I feel that I’m in command of my own destiny, and I can pretty much do what I want. That’s a wonderful feeling to have when you’re a creative person." 

Don Davis is the author of 10 true crime books, many on the New York Times best seller list. Some of them are: The Milwaukee Murders: Nightmare in Apartment 213: The True Story, A Father’s Rage, Death Cruise, Bad Blood and Fallen Hero.