McCain plans NPC Book Rap on 'Thirteen Soldiers' Nov. 11, Veterans Day

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., plans to discuss and sign copies of his book, Thirteen Soldiers, at a National Press Club Book Rap on Veterans Day, Tuesday, Nov. 11, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

This is a ticketed event and registration is required here. Tickets are $5 for National Press Club members; $10 public. Limit of one discounted ticket per Press Club member. Members should log in for the discount code. Members can also pre-order the book and have the fee waived, an option that appears on the ticket form once the member is logged in.

This event is a fundraiser for the Club's Journalism Institute. Books must be purchased through the Club. No outside books or memorabilia permitted and all sales are final.

Thirteen Soldiers offers the history of Americans at war, told through the personal accounts of 13 remarkable soldiers who fought in major military conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the book, McCain tells the stories of real soldiers who personify valor, obedience, enterprise and love. For example, Joseph Plumb Martin, who at 15 fought in the Revolutionary War; Charles Black, a freeborn African-American sailor in the War of 1812; and Sam Chamberlain, of the Mexican American War, whose life inspired novelist Cormac McCarthy. Then there's Oliver Wendell Holmes, an aristocratic idealist disillusioned by the Civil War, and Littleton "Tony" Waller, court-martialed for refusing to massacre Filipino civilians.

Each account illustrates a particular aspect of war, such as Mary Rhoads, an Army reservist forever changed by an Iraqi scud-missile attack during the Persian Gulf War, and Monica Lin Brown, a front-line medic in rural Afghanistan who saved several lives in an ambushed convoy.

As a veteran himself, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a long-time student of history, McCain brings a distinctive perspective to this subject.