Firefly: A Skyraider's Story About America's Secret War Over Laos

It is 1969 and Dick Diller is on his way to flying warplanes in the Vietnam conflict. He is commissioned to fly A-1 Skyraiders in sometimes harrowing nighttime missions over Laos, surviving not only the danger of the missions he flew, but also the bureaucracy of the air force -- from fitness testing to additional duties assigned, to attacking impossible-to-find targets in the dead of night with minimal fuel supplies.

At once entertaining and riveting, as well as thought-provoking, Firefly is the story of one man's journey in a world at war, and a day-to-day description of the fighting force that was flying A-1 Skyraiders in combat. Firefly contains actual transcriptions of dialogue of pilots locating a target and making a strike in northern Laos.

Dick Diller was born and raised in Princeton, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in finance and received an officer's commission in the United States Air Force through ROTC. He went to pilot training at Laughlin AFB, Texas, where he flew T-37s and T-38s and received an F-102 assignment upon graduation. That assignment changed to F-106s while in F-102 training. When the air force needed pilots for the Vietnam War, Diller was assigned to fly A-1 Skyraiders at Nakhon Phanom RTAFB, Thailand, where he flew 203 missions, mostly at night, over Laos.

After his air force service, Diller flew 29 years for Delta Air Lines, where he was a line check airman and served as captain representative to the Air Line Pilots Association for the Chicago based Delta pilots. He and his wife live in northern Illinois. They have three adult children, and five grandchildren.