Lieutenant Colonel Jud McLester, USAF (ret.) “attended VMI and Clemson College earning a BS in engineering. June 1962 he reported to Laughlin A.F.B. Texas for pilot training. Beginning in 1964 while on active duty in Vietnam, Jud flew the F-100 and F102 fighter aircraft; he continued military flying in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard. After five years of service Jud retired from the Air Force and became a commercial airline pilot with major airlines, Jud flew the Boeing 737, 727, 747. In a forty year aviation career he amassed over twenty thousand flight hours. Captain McLester served as instructor, training manager and Continental Airlines B737 chief pilot at the Newark hub. Lieutenant Colonel Jud McLester is the author of Thru a Pilot’s Eye: Cold War through Vietnam Era.

The MOAA said of Thru a Pilot’s Eye: Cold War through Vietnam Era, “The 1960s brought a period of intense combat and courageous missions to America’s Armed Forces. In his new book, McLester reveals the life of a fighter pilot in this tumultuous time. Readers are swept into his many dangerous missions from intercepting Russian bombers to nuclear alert assignments located within striking distance from the former Soviet Union. Readers are carried through the rigor of training and the mindset of those that prepared for these “one-way missions.”