Robert L. Decker is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy. He served as an Air Force pilot for seven years. Among his duties, he flew with Klong Hopper Airlines in Thailand and in the evacuation of Saigon in 1975. After his Air Force service, he worked as an investment analyst in Chicago for over three decades.His love for flying came from his father, who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and from a cousin, who was a Thud pilot and Prisoner of War in Vietnam. He credits his mother, a high school English teacher, for his love of books.