?»?Loyal Gordon Bassett was a Command Pilot in the United States Air Force. He flew eight different types of aircraft between 1966 and 1989. Bassett piloted the USAF Undergraduate Pilot Training aircraft T-41, T-37, T-38 from 1967-68. He flew the EC-47 with a Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron in Vietnam (Pleiku, AB) where he flew 155 combat missions (over 200 sorties) in 1968-69. He was a Strategic Air Command (SAC) KC-135A tanker pilot from 1969 to 1971. He flew the T-39 executive transport at HQ SAC and HQ AFES from 1971 to 1974. He was as a SAC nuclear-strike combat-crew commander/bomber pilot flying the high-performance fighter-bomber FB-111A from 1975 to 1979. Lastly, he flew the King Air C-12 as an Air Attach?© (DIA) with the U.S. Embassy in Brazil from 1980 to 1983. Bassett later served as an international policy-maker/Country Director at the Pentagon and Dean of Students for foreign students at the Defense Language Institute where his flying background was instrument in job performance. Bassett earned, among other military decorations, the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and six Combat Air Medals for his service. He retired from the USAF as a Lieutenant Colonel.