William Reeder Jr.

William Reeder was born in Glendale, California. Raised in and around Los Angeles, he enlisted in the Army in 1965 after working as a U.S. Forest Service firefighter and electrical lineman for Southern California Edison. He had two tours of duty in Vietnam flying OV-1 Mohawk reconnaissance airplanes and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters. On his second combat tour, he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese, spending nearly a year as a prisoner of war. Through the Valley is his memoir of that experience. His second book is titled, Extraordinary Valor: The Fight for Charlie Hill. It is the story of the heroes of a hard-fought battle during the 1972 Easter Offensive in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The outnumbered South Vietnamese 11th Airborne Battalion fought valiantly against an overwhelming North Vietnamese force for days before running out of food, water, and ammunition and being overrun. Of the 470 paratroopers on Charlie, only 36 survived, along with their badly wounded American advisor. The remaining 434 were killed, captured, or missing in action. The latest book, We Dared to Fly, is the true story of the young men who risked their lives daily on classified missions deep behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War, flying the Grumman OV-1 Mohawk into the jaws of death to capture timely intelligence for top military decision makers and senior national officials.