Broken Silence: A Military Whistleblower's Fight for Justice, a memoir by Sy'needa Penland

Broken Silence, "A Military Whistleblower's Fight for Justice," is a modern-day Scarlet Letter story of how former Navy Lieutenant Commander Sy'needa Penland was convicted of adultery after she blew the whistle on defense contracting fraud.

Those who operate in darkness and seek to cheat and defraud the government, banded together to destroy the former Supply Corps officer's impeccable career and used her conviction as an "example" to others.

Differing from Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic fiction, Broken Silence is a true survival story of a courageous military whistleblower's fight for justice. Similar to Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter, Sy' was forced to trade her gold oak leaf and stripes she proudly wore on her military uniform for a symbolic "A" of adultery.

Interestingly enough, Sy' was "single."

Adultery is not a crime in civilian court, but the Navy's top brass who went after the honest financial officer knew this could be a tool that would lead to her destruction.

They wanted to "muzzle" her any way they could and used the military's justice system to silence her, until now.