President Eisenhower warned Americans about the domino effect that might cause all of Asia to fall to communists, just as China and Eastern Europe had. Kennedy listened and sent a small band of advisors to Vietnam and Laos. Johnson may have thought he was fulfilling Kennedy's legacy of supporting free, independent, and democratic countries when he expanded the scale of the intervention and then Nixon upped the scale of bombing geometrically.

Between 1964 and 1975, more bombs were dropped on the small country of Laos than on Germany, or Japan, during World War II. The resulting devastation is still evident throughout the nation. The number of Americans killed in the Laotian campaign is disputed, but roughly three hundred have never been accounted for. The number of Laotians killed has been estimated to be over twenty thousand.

This tale, told through the eyes of young Carter Williston, is a fictional account about how the CIA directed their secret war. But it is fiction born of vivid memories of the soldiers, aircrews, and technicians who thought they were saving the world with their courage and thankless hard work. Thousands of Americans risked, and often lost, their lives in a shadow war with fluid and obscure political/military objectives.

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