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Brigadier General
Alfonse R. Miele
Permanent Professor 1961–1968
B.A., Fordham University
M.A., Columbia University
Ph.D., Columbia University
Al Miele, the Academy’s 9th Permanent Professor, was born in New York City in 1922. He graduated from Fordham University in 1942 with a Bachelor’s degree in Romance Languages and a commission in the US Army from ROTC. From 1942 to 1945 he served in five battle campaigns in the European Theater with the Fourth Infantry Division, including the Normandy invasion, where he was awarded the Bronze Star, and the liberation of Paris. Following the war, Al was a language student at the University of Nancy, France, 1945, and at Columbia, where he earned his Master’s degree in 1947. When the Air Force was established, he cross-commissioned to the new service. He was an Intelligence Officer with Air Training Command, then in 1948–1949 a student of Russian at the Army Language School. From 1949 to 1952 he taught French and Russian language and literature at the US Naval Academy. He returned to Europe in 1953 with duty at Allied Air Forces Central Europe, Fontainebleau, France; then for two years he was the Senior Aide-de-Camp to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in Fontainebleau and Paris. In 1956 Al began his doctoral work in languages at Columbia, where he was awarded the PhD degree in 1958. With this exceptional preparation, Al arrived at the Air Force Academy in 1958 and became Acting Head of the nascent Department of Foreign Languages. In 1960 he was made Professor and Department Head and the following year appointed Permanent Professor. Al Miele was responsible for many groundbreaking contributions to the Academy’s foreign language program. He introduced and fostered the audio-lingual form of instruction, putting oral communication first. He developed a state-of-the-art language laboratory. He increased the coverage in strategic languages by adding Chinese to the curriculum. He instituted and then enlarged the foreign officer exchange program with allied nations to provide authenticity and cultural value to language instruction. In 1967 the Republic of France awarded him the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques for significant contributions to the understanding of French culture and civilization as teacher and professor. He left the department after the Spring 1968 semester and served as Associate Dean and Chair of the Humanities Division until he retired from the Air Force later that year. He was promoted to brigadier general in the 1990s.
Following his active duty service, Al Miele continued to serve the nation in academic and foreign relations roles. He was President of The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, 1970–1972, the first male and first layperson to serve in that role. Later in the 1970s he was an administrator in the International Aviation Affairs Office of the Federal Aviation Administration and served as chief negotiator for an Aviation Technology Agreement with the Soviet Union. He also served in the Public Affairs Office of the Department of the Interior. He died in 2007 and is buried in the Air Force Academy Cemetery.