Resolve

On April 9, 1942, thousands of U.S. soldiers surrendered as the Philippines island of Luzon fell to the Japanese. But a few hundred Americans placed their faith in their own hands and headed for the jungles. One of them was twenty-three-year-old Clay Conner Jr., who had never even camped before . . . The obstacles to Conner's survival were as numerous as the enemy soldiers who ultimately put a price on his head: among them malaria, heat, jungle rot, snakes, and mosquitoes. Beyond that, the human threats of betrayal, capture, torture, and death. And, finally, he had to overcome self-doubt, struggle with the despair of burying comrades, deal with friction among his fellow American soldiers, and find a way to survive. But if conflict reveals character, Conner showed himself to be a man apart. Inspired by an unlikely alliance with a tribe of arrow-shooting pygmies, by the words in a dog-eared New Testament, and by a tattered American flag that he vowed to someday triumphantly fly at battalion headquarters, Conner emerged victorious from the jungle--after almost three years. Resolve is the story of an unlikely hero who never surrendered to the enemy--and of a soldier who never gave up hope.