When the Huts Fall Silent

Jimmy Young has a decision to make. He can take his chances and be drafted into the Vietnam War, or he can accept an offer to join the CIA and go to El Salvador in this action-filled novel. In 1973, the military draft was still in place and American soldiers continued dying in Vietnam. Jimmy, a kid raised on a Kansas ranch, decides to take his chances in Central America. Meeting his CIA handler, Jimmy is given extensive military survival training and is then the handed over to his local partner, Manono. He receives more training from Manono, followed by missions in the field doing secret work for the CIA.When the Huts Fall Silent tells what happens to this 18-year-old, who sees two years of torture and death during the early stages of the heinous conflict in El Salvador. Death squads, torture, murder, and cocaine running were paid for and trained by America’s interdiction into this small Central American country. El Salvador did not get much press until 1977. The negotiated peace by the U.N. ended actual combat in 1992.