Resolve: From the Jungles of WWII Bataan, the Epic Story of a Soldier, a Flag, and a Promise Kept

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.