Publisher's Synopsis
My nerves had settled since being escorted from the briefing room by the Air Police. I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. To keep quiet would mean betraying the American people. "Tell us sergeant, what would posses you to refuse to take an oath to serve, support, and protect your country?" Lawrence Drake served in the nation's top-secret cryptologic intelligence gathering facility in Asia at the height of the Vietnam War, working side by side with the National Security Agency, Army Security Agency, Navy Security Group, and the Air Force Security Service. The secrets he learned ultimately led him and his friends to make a unique and bold protest against the war. It was a first of its kind, and those in command were bewildered as to how to handle it. What followed resulted in a small band of patriotic rebels known as the Red Boots. Written with the feel of a novel, his story is filled with suspenseful drama, intrigue, romance, and ironic humor. It symbolizes the coming of a new era. This book is not the typical Vietnam War story. In fact, it doesn't even take place in Vietnam, yet it reveals disturbing facts that went on behind the scenes by those who pulled the strings, and it visits a time when the innocence of youth woke up to the stark reality of war. Life in the 1960's brought conflict in the war zone and struck at the moral conscience of young Americans both in and out of the military. Not all wars were fought on the battlefield, and not all protests took place on college campuses. The declassification of TOP SECRET UMBRA documents in October of 2013 has made it possible to tell this story. Up until recently, no one without the appropriate clearance had seen a document marked UMBRA. The TOP SECRET UMBRA document #2909802, UNITED STATES CRYPTOLOGIC HISTORY "The Joint SOBE Processing Center 1961 -1971" was declassified under the authority of the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel in October of 2013.
