Thomas W. Young served in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Air National Guard.  He has also flown combat missions to Bosnia and Kosovo, and additional missions to Latin America, the horn of Africa, and the Far East.  In all, Young has logged almost four thousand hours as a flight engineer on the C-5 Galaxy and the C-130 Hercules, while flying to almost forty countries.  Military honors include two Air Medals, three Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal.

In civilian life he spent ten years as a writer and editor with the broadcast division of the Associated Press, and flew as a first officer for Independence Air, an airline based at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.  Young holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  

The Mullah's Storm was Young's first significant work of fiction, and he follows it in 2011 with a sequel, Silent Enemy.  His nonfiction publications include The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan, released in 2008 by McFarland and Company.  His narrative, "Night Flight to Baghdad," appeared in the Random House anthology, Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.