After high school and one year of junior college, Mike Shepherd joined the Air Force and graduated from Armed Forces Journal School in 1967, and was sent to Vietnam where he served as a radio news reporter for 7th Air Force Information and Armed Forces Radio. As a frequent flier while reporting on the merits of air support, he was awarded the Air Medal. When he returned to the States he attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale on the GI Bill. Upon graduating he became employed by the State of Illinois as a public information officer and speech writer before retiring. He then authored several historic-fiction novels about the wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. He's presently a free-lance writer for various magazines and newspapers. Happily married, Shepherd lives in the country with wife Jane near Springfield, Illinois.