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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Ms. Marsha D. Knarr

Colonel, USA Retired, William (Bill) Mitchell Knarr, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland and entered active duty in January 1968. He married Marsha Deane in May 1968 and was assigned to the 199th Infantry Brigade, Vietnam from 1968 to1969. In Vietnam he worked with 10 Vietnamese Field Force personnel in support of infantry search operations. In Vietnam, Bill had many opportunities to fly on air assault and reconnaissance missions. Bill attended Infantry OCS in 1973 and Flight School, rotary wing and fixed wing, in 1974.
Bill was assigned to the 120th Assault Helicopter Company, Alaska in 1975 as flight commander and operations officer. He flew the UH-1 helicopter. Missions included helicopter support to the Infantry Brigade and the "Scouts" on the Alaskan coastline, and search and rescue operations.
In 1979 Bill was assigned to the 3d Combat Aviation Battalion, Germany and flew the OH-58 Scout aircraft.
At Fort Rucker, 1983 to 1986, Bill supervised 26 aviators to support and evaluate cockpits of aerospace contractors as part of the LHX program. The scope and structure of user support was a first for Army Aviation.
From 1987 to 1989 Bill was the Aviation officer for a Special Operations Unit.
Bill served as the TRADOC Systems Manager (TSM) for Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) from 1997 to 2001. He represented the Army in testing their first fully fielded UAV, the Shadow and wrote the Army's "Tactical UAV System Road Map" submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives in the summer of 2001. Additionally, Bill championed the first Aerial Common Sensor requirements document to be approved.
Bill and Marsha retired to Alexandria, Virginia in February 2002 where he continues to work aviation related projects at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA).