Falcon's Cry : A Desert Storm Memoir

When Major Michael Donnelly was instructing his US Air Force student pilots, he used to tell them three things: "Timing is everything", "It's nice to be lucky", and "There is no justice".

Highly decorated fighter pilot, proud young patriot, loyal friend with a mischievous sense of humour, loving husband and father of two, he could not have imagined the tragic meaning those words would assume just a few years later after his tour of duty in Desert Storm.

In 1996, Major Donnelly was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease, at the unusually early age of 35.

The onset of this illness marked the beginning of a kind of torture beyond the scope of even the most rigorous military training survival.

Betrayed by his body, eventually paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, he experienced another betrayal perhaps even more difficult to comprehend - betrayal by his country. For despite the fact that over 160,000 Desert Storm veterans are sick - many dying of mysterious cancers and neurological diseases, including ten times the normal incidence of ALS - and despite all evidence pointing to US troops having been dosed by low levels of Iraqi nerve agents and exposed to chemical weapons fallout, the Pentagon adamantly denies any connection between their illnesses and their service in the Gulf War. "Falcon's Cry: A Desert Storm Legacy", Michael Donnelly's unforgettable story, is his courageous attempt to unearth the truth and force an acknowledgement of that truth by the government he and his fellow veterans defended with their lives.