Marshall L. Michel III

After college joined the Air Force and became a fighter pilot, flying RF-4s and F-4s during the Vietnam War (321 combat missions over North Vietnam and Laos). I was then selected to be the air attaché to Israel, an amazing position that allowed me to become familiar with the Israeli Air Force (IAF) and how they helped the United States Air Force (USAF) training programs. After I completed that assignment I flew F-15s at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, then became the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J-5), Israel/Lebanon Desk Officer. This was followed by serval staff and school assignments, including a year as a Fellow at the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, and finished my career as the US Air Force Representative at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium. I retired in 1992 and began to write books on air combat. I completed my first book, “Clashes: Air Combat Over North Vietnam 1965-1972,” in 1997 and have written four more books since then, three books on various aspects of the Vietnam air war and one on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg raids on Germany in 1943. My upcoming book, “With a Little Help From Our Friends: How the Israeli Air Force and American Air Forces Joined to Save the World,” will cover how the two countries’ air forces shared information that resulted in the Israeli victory in the Beeka Valley and the US air forces success in Operation Desert Storm.