Tom Clavin: Last Men Out: The True Story of America's Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam

In the final hours of the Vietnam War, eleven Marines had a difficult choice to make.

In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground.

Drury and Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who were the last men to leave, rescued from the U.S. Embassy roof just moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that the end had come, these courageous men held their ground and helped save thousands of lives. Drury and Clavin deliver a taut and stirring account of a turning point in American history that unfolds with the heartstopping urgency of the best thrillers—a riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.

Tom Clavin is the author of eight books, including Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue and Dark Noon: The Final Voyage of the Fishing Boat Pelican. He is a former writer for the New York Times, and his work has also appeared in publications such as: Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, Men's Journal, Parade, and Reader's Digest.