“Close Air Support and forward air controller mission is too often pontificated on and too little understood. Matt Dietz successfully provides a comprehensive history of the Forward Air Controllers. Using diligent research and blending it with a deep conviction of his subject matter, Dietz has authored a sweeping and authoritative history of a mission-set and the men and women who make it possible.”—Brian D. Laslie, Command Historian, United States Air Force Academy
“Matt Dietz, a scholar, an officer, and an F-15 pilot, is uniquely qualified to write this essential and engrossing history of airborne Forward Air Controllers (FACs) in the U.S. military. Dietz conclusively proves in this taut, well-argued study, that FACs are a key piece in creating what Marine General Jim Mattis called the ‘vicious harmony’ of the United States military. Without them, there is only chaos and fratricide.”—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East
“The scope and the scholarly research across that vast range of the subject covering over a century of warfare will make Eagles Overhead unique. Dietz integrates that long, enduring and sometimes costly internecine squabble that erupted in internal bickering within the Army Air Corps early on, bubbled up and spread to the Navy later on, and cost lives in Vietnam. It continues to the present. The author’s knowledge of American military history shines in this regard.”—Earl H. Tilford, author of Crosswinds: The Air Force in Vietnam
“The potential for Dietz’s book is substantial—it could become the standard reference on USAF FACs. Coverage is remarkably complete with exceptionally detailed sources.”—Barrett Tillman, author of Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945 and Corsair: The F4U in World War II and Korea
"This book provides an expert’s perspective on the FAC’s story in the US Air Force (and its predecessors), covering decades that include--as the title suggests--multiple conflicts and many changes in doctrine, which forms a cyclic narrative of capabilities improvised, abandoned because there was no further need for them, then re-created when the shooting starts again. . . . It is a complex story, yet the author is exceptionally qualified: an Air Force colonel and fighter pilot, he chairs the history department at Colorado Springs. The author’s extensive research effort is apparent."--The NYMAS Review
"Author Matt Dietz, a career US Air Force officer and aviator currently serving as head of the history department at the US Air Force Academy, informs his prose with a warfighter’s credibility in a manner that can be easily understood by a general reader. . . . Eagles Overhead excels as a complete but approachable history that pays proper homage to but also transcends its topic. It is worthwhile reading for anyone interested in how a program or capability survives—and sometimes thrived—within a larger bureaucratic system that invests in what it perceives as higher priorities. And it offers an informed view of the application of airpower past, present, and potentially into the future."--Aether
"This book is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in CAS and Army-Air Force operations. It covers far more than FACs. An underlying theme tackles differences between the Army and Air Force."--Journal of the Air Force Historical Foundation