LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
It's been a phenomenal year of growth, hard work and excellence for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Detachment 409 in San Antonio.
In a consolidation move early last summer to provide services more efficiently, Lackland's OSI Det. 409 became a "Super Det" as it gained command of Randolph AFB's investigations detachment and the OSI fraud unit downtown.
"Under the transformation, Det. 409 is the OSI operational unit for felony criminal investigations and counterintelligence services for most of central and southern Texas," said Det. 409 Special Agent in Charge Steven Kerley. "We cover 79 counties," he said, in a contiguous territory from just north of Waco, just east of Houston, south to Brownsville and west to Kerrville.
Det. 409's work force grew to 42 personnel during the expansion. About one-third of its special agents were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, yet the detachment worked about 110 criminal cases last year.
In recognition of the agents' hard work, Headquarters Air Force Office of Special Investigations recently named Det. 409 the 2007 Large Detachment of the Year.
"Recognition for the Large Detachment of the Year was not due to one individual," Agent Kerley said. "It was a result of hard work on the part of a very young work force.
"It was a great job that they did," he continued. "It was not just that we ran a lot of cases, resulting in significant prosecutions. That definitely had an impact. The key was that the unit was still able to perform at this high level even with the unit consolidation, high deployment operations tempo, personnel turnover and the high percentage of probationary agents we have."
About 65 or 70 percent of the agents are on probation because they joined OSI within the last two years, he said. The turnover, he said, is just normal for Air Force relocations and discharges.
In addition to the transformation, Det. 409 also had four leadership changes last year. The first commander, Maj. Rene Hilton, deployed to Afghanistan and was replaced by a civilian special agent in charge, Paul Valdez, who was promoted from within the detachment. He now has his own detachment. Agent Jack Cowan moved up to replace him until Agent Kerley arrived from Afghanistan.
Again referring to the detachment's agents - a mix of commissioned officers, enlisted personnel and civilians - Agent Kerley said: "I look at what they accomplished, and I can't believe that they were still able to perform at that level with all those challenges.
"We conduct investigations on any felony matter having ties to the Air Force," he said. "If it's a death of an active-duty person or civilian, felony criminal or fraud allegations, or intelligence threats to DoD, we will work those cases, sometimes with other federal, state or local authorities.
"Any crimes against the Air Force - theft, misappropriation, fraud - we'll take a look at those matters. So it's not really restricted just to the base. We have a lot of allegations that involve areas outside of San Antonio."
Some cases generate front page news, such as the arrest of a man who shipped packages from Iraq to San Antonio that contained various items plus $150,000 in cash, all undeclared, according to court documents unsealed early last month. The man, who worked for an Air Force contractor, was held in a downtown San Antonio jail for weeks as agents of the Air Force, Army, FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement followed the trail of cash he allegedly mailed to his sister, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
Agent Kerley said the OSI is always seeking to recruit top performers.
"It's a very rewarding job," he said. "It's an opportunity for individuals to take an issue from beginning to completion and see the impact they have on the Air Force. It could be a drug, fraud, death, other major felony investigation or a counterintelligence matter. Agents receive an allegation, conduct a thorough investigation and follow through with action such as convictions or neutralization of threats. Agents know they are directly responsible for bettering the Air Force environment and eliminating threats, whether they be criminals, terrorists or foreign agents."
Being an OSI agent also is "a very rewarding job in the deployment piece," he said. "Our folks are often developing critical information that results in the recovery of weapons caches, the identification of terrorists or insurgents and the elimination of those threats.
"So whether it's here or at war, it's a job that ties back easily to: 'I can have an impact on the Air Force in my day-to-day job.'"
Agent Kerley added that the job is very challenging. "These folks work long hours. They're in here on the weekends. It amazes me what these young folks are able to do."
He invites any top performer to apply. "The biggest struggle we have is recruiting qualified enlisted agents. If anybody's interested, please reach out to us. We've submitted four packages already this year for OSI duty," he said, noting that Lackland's population is an excellent place to find top performers.
The target group is enlisted with four to 12 years of service in almost any career field. It could be finance, he said, noting "a big chunk of our business is fraud. So we intentionally recruit diverse career fields so we bring a wide variety of skills to the table."
Agents' ranks are protected because they may be investigating someone with a higher rank.
Recruits go through about 16 weeks at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia to become a federal agent. "They come out of that training with very solid skill sets, the same training as any other federal agent," Agent Kerley said.
Det. 409's 110 cases last year led to 38 convictions. Among them were 47-plus active-duty drug users and dealers at Lackland and Randolph.
The agents' hard work earned an "Excellent" rating during the Field Investigation Region 4 2007 Unit Compliance Inspection.