Product Review

From 1972 to 1974, Rick A. Waters served as a Morse intercept operator for the now defunct Army Security Agency. His task was deceptively simple: translate and transcribe encrypted enemy Morse code messages.

Waters is one of the few to survive the training process—his military operations specialty was known to have one of the highest washout rates in the army. Those who passed were considered gifted, but the achievement came at a high cost.

"Diddy boppers," as the operators call themselves, work under great pressure and secrecy, forbidden to discuss their work. To blow off steam, Waters and his fellow soldiers turn to drugs, alcohol, and women—coping strategies tacitly approved by the ASA. Some survive the strain. Some go mad.

Waters's service in Vietnam and Germany soon take a terrible toll on his health. Unbeknownst to the diddy boppers, but an open secret in the higher echelons, high-speed code interception damages long-term memory, leaving nineteen-year-old Waters with a debilitating condition that will last his entire life.

Bitingly funny, often absurd, and ultimately sobering, O5H-20: The 96% True Journal of a Military Spy documents the diddy boppers' stories—and the sacrifice they unknowingly made for their country.