Byron Hukee was born in Duluth, Minnesota. He attended and graduated from Augsburg College in Minneapolis in 1968. Following a very brief one-year teaching career (1 year!), he joined the USAF to become a pilot. He amassed 3,100 flying hours in five different fighter aircraft during his 24-year Air Force career. First he flew the F-100 and was bound for an assignment in Vietnam. But the Hun was being phased out of Vietnam service and he was diverted to the A-1 Skyraider. Hukee flew a one-year combat tour as a Sandy pilot with the 1st SOS in 1971 and 1972. His story of this tour is available at http://skyraider.org/hook/index.htm. Following his combat tour, Hukee was assigned to the 76th TFS at England AFB where he flew the A-7D Corsair II. After three years, he was assigned to the 425th TFTS where he was a Fighter Weapons School instructor in the F-5E Tiger II. More than a thousand hours of flying time later he was assigned to the initial cadre of the newly operational F-16 Viper at Hill AFB. Following assignments with both the 474th TFW and 57FWW at Nellis AFB, his last flying assignment was with the 8th TFW at Kunsan AB in Korea.Following retirement from active USAF duty in 1993, Hukee rejoined the USAF as an Air Force civilian in 2001 at Ramstein AB in Germany. He was assigned to the 32nd AOS as part of USAFE HQ where he worked in the Strategy Division of the AOC until he returned to the USA in 2008. All told, Hukee served with the USAF for a total of 31 years.Byron Hukee is married and has two grown children and currently lives in western Virginia. The book USAF and VNAF A-1 Skyraider Units of the Vietnam War is his first book. He has written magazine articles in the past.