 I joined the Air Force right after 9-11. I actually graduated in 2001 Shortly after 9-11 happened and I was ready to go into the military I actually was drawn to the Air Force or the Navy because I had this notion that they had the best Intelligence assets. I actually went to the Navy recruiter first He wasn't there and right across the hall was the Marine recruiter US Marine Corps recruiter And I told him that I wanted to join the Air Force or the Navy because I thought they had the best intelligence assets and Ironically the Marine recruiter agreed and he said this is the only advice I'm gonna give you and he took a dime He had it in his hand and he flipped it up and it laid it on the floor and nails the floor in his office Was actually blue and had blue carpet and he said I want you to imagine this entire carpet is ocean and that dime is the ship you're on and The rest of your career is spent on that ship in the middle of the ocean He said is that how you want to spend the rest of your career and right then in there? I knew that I wanted to join the Air Force, so when the Air Force recruiter came in I talked to him and The rest is history. That's why I joined the Air Force I've been in the Air Force total service now about 16 years almost 17 years However, this gets a little tricky because I served 11 years active duty and I've been a US Air Force Reservist ever since so 11 of those years were active and the rest are on the reserve side of the house Now when we talk about a rank my rank is also confusing because I'm a special agent So technically my rank is special agent. I'm a special agent with the Air Force office of special investigations Now our rank is masked for a couple of reasons one is for command influence We don't want any command influence on our investigations. So if a higher ranking officer, let's just say a colonel Let's say a colonel is a subject of an investigation and I'm talking to them They shouldn't be able to order me to do anything or influence the way my investigation has taken me So that's why our ranks are masked in that scenario But also let's think about the opposite end of the spectrum Our ranks are also masked because if there's a brand new airman in the Air Force Let's say a female and she wants to report a crime if I am in 05 and she is in there talking to me She may be intimidated and she might not tell me everything that there is she might not tell me all the facts or the Circumstances around the situation. So that's another reason why our max our ranks are masked So we can actually get all the information we need without an airman feeling intimidated The name of my job is special agent with Air Force office of special investigations The a fsc is seven s o x one You can't get into OSI straight from enlisting you actually have to be in for a while before you can get into OSI So when I initially signed up for the Air Force, I actually signed up on the delayed entry program under another job That was called power production. I scored really how on the mechanical side of my as fat That was a job that came available and that just means that I work on I worked on big generators The specialty code for that is three o x two now What's my retraining window opened then I applied to be a special agent with Air Force OSI the The recruiting team liked me. I got picked up in the rest of history. I Didn't really know about the OSI position I didn't know OSI even existed until I went to my first tech school and Once I got to my tech school There's like an endoc briefing that you have to get where they teach you all the rule They they brief you on all the rules They tell you what you can and cannot do and all that type stuff and I remember one of the briefers in that endoc Was an OSI agent the guy walked in now remember I just came from BMT where everyone had a sharp crisp uniform Everyone was clean clean shaven and I've been in this briefing for hours being you know killed by PowerPoint So death by PowerPoint this guy walks in he doesn't have a PowerPoint presentation He's got a beard and a suit and he says hey, I'm a special agent with OSI I just want to tell you guys what to look out for and where you shouldn't go in this town And he tells us that you know what his job is how he investigates crimes for the Air Force and from that point on I was just super intrigued with OSI and I knew that at some point I wanted to do that So from that point on I knew that when my cross training window came available. I was going to pursue OSI When I first signed up remember 9-11 had just happened and I knew that because the Attackers were from you know Middle East Middle Eastern descent I knew that Arabic was gonna be a language that the Air Force needed and I really wanted to be an Arabic linguist also if I couldn't be an Arabic linguist I wanted to be to do something in Intel the Intel realm I knew that we were gonna need intelligence professionals to help track the bad guys And we were gonna need Arabic speakers to actually communicate with anyone they might catch So that's how my mind was working back then. That's what I wanted to do Unfortunately, I didn't score high enough on my ASFA to get into the intelligence community And I didn't score high enough on the D lab to actually get an Arabic language so that since I scored high on the mechanical side and Electrical power production was gonna get me into the Air Force the quickest. That's the route I took I Initially signed up for a four-year contract and that's really just because I have a problem with commitment I'll my thought process was I'll do this for four years If I don't like it it gives me a window of opportunity to get out the worst in worst-case scenario They're gonna teach me a skill and a trait that I can apply to the civilian sector I'm going to get a GI bill and I can get my school paid for once I get out And if I like it then I can just you know reenlist So what's the worst that can happen now? I'm not saying that's the route that everyone should go But I can tell you worked out great for me because if I would have enlisted for six years that Retraining window to cross-train into OSI would have been extended and I wouldn't have been instead of retraining at three Or applying to retrain at three years and some change. I would have had to wait five years and some change So I'm kind of glad at this point I signed up for a four-year commitment They actually offered me a fat bonus. Well when you're 19 that kind of money sounds good I think it was about 3,500 bucks and after taxes. That's not much to stay To commit for six years, but I actually didn't I turned down the bonus to do four and now we can it worked out for me So the tech school if you will is in Glenco Georgia. It's actually at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center It's not a tech school. It's actually the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glenco, Georgia It's where 80 different federal agencies send their new agents to get trained So the training the initial training in OSI is going to last about five and a half months So I remember leaving in January end of January in 2007 and I graduated mid-July and the training is broken down into two sections the first section is The the course that everyone comes to all the agencies send their agents to this course It's called basic basic special investigations course now. That's where you learn to be a federal police officer That's where you go. You're gonna learn your constitutional law your use of force You're gonna learn your officer tactics and then once you graduate there if you graduate Then you get to go into your follow-on school at your respective agency now all the agencies have schools at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Of course mine was Air Force OSI so at the first school you might be Embedded with a bunch of different agencies, but once you graduate basic you go to your respective agency training That's where you learn how to be an Air Force OSI agent and you learn about Regulations and Air Force how the Air Force operates and UCMJ and things like that Tech school was very different from a military school now remember this is a this is actually a civilian school Where civilians go to learn how to be federal agents So it was a different experience for me and I actually liked it now. I was young when I went into OSI I was actually an e4 I was only two one of two e4s that got selected to go in 2000 my class in 2007 was me and another guy the hardest part for me was the studying You know, I'm not a good student So I have to study extra hard to actually pass tests and things like that and the teaching is very fast-paced now Remember you're going through you're learning constitutional law and going through very important cases in just a matter of weeks So you have to learn very fast and you have to study There wasn't a time where I got to go out where my other classmates would go out in town and in party a little bit I wasn't able to do that because I had to study and to be honest with you I'm embarrassed to say I still finished right like right in the middle of my class. I still wasn't you know that great I had to study a lot that was the hardest part about my class the physical aspect I was in great shape at that time and I actually liked the physical aspect of it You know, I ran a lot while there the officer tactics portion. I really enjoyed I excelled at you know I can't think of anything that I disliked about the federal law enforcement training center One thing I'd like to add about Fletsey is it's not like a military course It's a it's a civilian training center and also with that, you know people that are going into Fletsey They're either they have their four-year degree. They've already been through college Or they've been in the workforce for a while. So it was a very professional course There wasn't a lot of yelling and you know, hurry up and wait and wearing your reflective belt and rules that just don't matter So I actually enjoyed Fletsey. They treated you like an adult and you got the respect that you earned So where can you go as an OSI agent when you graduate Fletsey? You can pretty much go be assigned to any base that has an Air Force OSI presence, which is almost all of them Here's the thing about OSI that not many people talk about the opportunity to specialize in OSI or the opportunities to specialize It's abundant. You can specialize in almost anything Now if you choose to specialize after your year of probation and you choose to specialize, let's say in forensics Or you specialize in being a polygraph examiner or you specialize like I did on the AST team or special mission branch Then your bases actually narrow. So for instance, the polygraphers can only choose from about five bases Maybe six and one of those is in Germany. You've got another one in the DC Buckley Air Force Base I think Travis Air Force Base and maybe Ohio. I can't you know, things have changed since I Specialized so those bases might have changed now. I can tell you on the anti-terrorism specialty team That's what I chose to specialize in now those units are assigned to special operations groups within the Air Force So wherever there is a special operations group, that's where you can go My assignment was at Milden Hall in England. I was a special I was attached to the special operations group in Milden Hall It was a 350 second special operations group and I know some of my colleagues were in canon air force base Some of my other colleagues were in hurlbert field. There were some other colleagues in Korea a base in Korea and I can't remember the other base right off hand just keep in mind if you're a Special agent and you choose not to specialize if you don't want to specialize in anything You can go to any base that you want any base that has a OSI present when you specialize those bases get narrow You can only go to a couple of bases As a special agent that's not specialized right in a certain area what happens is it's a very atypical day There's nothing typical about your day when I first came into OSI the days were it's not a nine to five job So anything could happen No, not only can anything happen You get phone calls all day about stuff that you may or may not look into at some points in your investigation You never know where those leads are going to take you and you might those leads might take you You know, you might have to travel to a different state and One day and you come back home and then the next day you're like Oh, I've got a we have to stay out at 3 a.m. To do a surveillance. So it's very atypical I can tell you that it was a very rewarding experience my first year in OSI because I got exposed to a lot of things with the local law enforcement Other federal agencies. I was doing, you know, Surveillance and I was involved in an undercover operation I was not the undercover but we led an undercover operation. I thought that was awesome. What else we got involved I was actually my first year in OSI. I was involved in a this was back when the f-22 was Coming on board and we found a deficiency in f-22 and we were being frauded by a company and I led an investigation that actually detected a deficiency And one of the systems and processes that was costing the government about 200 million a year So that was cool. So you get to be involved in all kinds of things like your first year in OSI Actually anytime in OSI like it's very atypical A lot of people don't know that they have a counterterrorism support or counterintelligence support to force protection mission when they are Actually deployed. What does that mean? That means that wherever they're deployed to they are tasked with protecting the assets and protecting that base Now you might be at a fob that's getting rocket and mortar attacks daily You've got to find out where there's mortar attacks are coming from and you need to go stop them So that was my first deployment experience in Kirkuk, Iraq and when I Went out there and I was exposed to that type of mission. That's when it flipped I was like, hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of my career And that's why I signed up to be on the AST team or anti-terrorism specialty team because I wanted to deploy I wanted to catch bad guys and now when you specialize that's different So I'll tell you about a typical day on the AST team You were either working up to a deployment. You were deployed or you were working out logistics for a deployment What do I mean by that? I mean, you're either training So you were going to a school that taught you how to shoot move and communicate Self-defense ci something along those lines to make you a better agent Then you were working the logistics how to get you from point a to point b get whatever you needed from point a to point b And you were working out what you were going to do when you went to that location Or you were actually deployed to that location as you can imagine the time with your family is it's not much Like you you know, I was married with two kids in England at the time and I didn't see them that much And that actually led me to to get out after 11 years because I knew that I was almost addicted to that job And I let that job kind of define me and that was kind of the point where at which I decided Hey, I need to get out So I'd like to give two pieces of advice to new airmen that are thinking about air force osi As you already know, I've already stated you can't come into osi when you enlist you actually have to be in You have to be within your retraining window before you can apply. There's no exceptional policy to that You have to do that now if you are thinking about osi and you want to be a federal agent There are some things that you can do to actually make yourself more competitive when it is your time to retrain Number one is keep your nose clean. So that's very important osi is looks very highly on moral compasses Right. So keep your nose clean. Number two is knock out your degree Your ccaf is first because osi wants to see what you've done for the air force and for some reason knocking out your ccaf is a huge deal Like you could have a phd in chemistry, but if you don't have your pa your ccaf you haven't done anything for the air force So that's in any career field that I've noticed. So make sure you knock out your ccaf I promise you it actually opened up some other doors The second piece of advice that I can give actually any airman not just anyone seeking osi So I can tell you that I fell into the trap when I was actually active duty of letting my job define who I was And I've seen this throughout my air force career People are defined by their air force job or their military job And because people let their job define them their relationships suffer. So let me go in depth with that So instead of when people ask me, hey who I am or what I like to do My first answer would always go back to my job. Like, oh, I'm I'm an ast team member, you know, that's my job That's who I am instead of saying I'm a father. I'm a father of two boys. Great boys I'm a husband of a wife who's been dedicated and following me around for the last 11 years And I also play guitar, you know, you kind of forget all about that when you let your job define who you are So here's my advice. Don't let your job define who you are Let your let your relationships and your surroundings define who you are and let that make you a better airman at your job And not vice versa because it's very easy to get sucked into a trap where the only thing that you can focus on Is being good at your job. Now a personal story here And it got to the point in my career where I did love my job It was the most rewarding job I had being on the ast team And I got to see some amazing places and I got to do some work that Some people can only dream of and I actually got addicted to it. It was like a drug I was ready as soon as I got back home. I was ready to deploy again. I was ready to go And my family was I still had a family. I still had kids that I had to raise I still had two boys that I had to, you know, teach them right from wrong And I had to teach them how to be men, but I was addicted to traveling to these places and doing the work I was doing so I had to look at myself in the mirror. Basically. I came home from a deployment and what my oldest kid He was a toddler. He was afraid of me. I was all bearded up. I walked through the door I was happy to be home and telling everybody hi my kid was terrified Like I was a stranger to him and from that point on I knew that something had to give So that's when I decided that I need to leave active duty I need to scale back a little bit and I need to open up my own business Some of the training that I received on the AST team opened up a lot of doors for me And I was able to open up a self-defense facility from some of the training in the contacts that I met on the AST team They helped me open up a Krav Maga training facility in a small town in virginia And um, I thought that was a great experience Now I actually travel full-time I sold that business and I travel full-time with my family in an RV And we actually document our experiences through a youtube channel Hey, I'd I'd be grateful if you guys check it out You can find out how to subscribe to our youtube channel by going to freedomcallingrv.com That's freedomcallingrv.com and if you have any questions about osi Um, I'm sure I don't have all the answers, but I can point you in the right direction So thanks a lot for checking out my experience with Air Force OS