Frank "Mickey" Schubert was born in Washington, D. C. He is a graduate of Howard University (B.A., 1965), the University of Wyoming (M. A., 1970), and the University of Toledo (Ph. D., 1977). He first became interested in African American history while at Howard, where his advisor was Rayford Logan, the dean of a generation of African American historians. He also was fortunate enough to take a course from Sterling Brown and work for Dorothy Porter in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. He has been working on topics related to Buffalo Soldiers since graduate school and studied with Bill Leckie, author of the classic Buffalo Soldiers, A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West (1967).

He served in the United States Army during 1965-1968, including one year in Vietnam, and rose to the rank of captain. He was a historian in the Department of Defense from 1977 until his retirement in June 2003, and was chief of the Joint Operational History Branch, in the Joint History Office, Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, from October 1993 until June 2003.

In addition to his books on Buffalo Soldiers, he has written extensively on a variety of military subjects, including frontier exploration, military construction, and most recently post-Cold War military operations. He has lectured at universities in Hungary and Romania. He was a Fulbright lecturer and taught frontier-related courses at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj (Kolozsvar, Klaussenburg), Romania during the 2003-2004 academic year. He speaks frequently at schools, colleges, historical societies, libraries, conferences, and institutes.

He and his wife Irene have just completed a companion volume to On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier, which updates about one thousand biographical entries, adds more than two thousand new ones, and features an index to both volumes.