In her vivid first-hand account, author Donna Searle McLay recounts the uncertainty, the confusion, and the intimate details of the voyage of several thousand civilians as the families of U.S. Navy and Marines stationed in Cuba were evacuated to Norfolk, Virginia, in October, 1962, at the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

President John F. Kennedy and Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed that nuclear war was not an option, and thus ended an international crisis, but only after days and weeks of behind-the-scenes meetings and concurrent wide-spread concerns by all.