Retired now, I was for 25 years a "Gentleman Investigator" or Special Agent with the Naval Investigative Service, now the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NIS/NCIS). (Yep, pards, never a real law dog, just a suit-wearing sworn federal ossifer.)
1/1976 - 11/1978 Hired in San Diego, assigned to general criminal investigations at Miramar Naval Air Station/Balboa Naval Hospital
11/78 - 01/80 Special Agent Afloat (Adrift?) USS America. Only sworn LEO in a CVBG (Carrier Battle Group) with approx 10,000 "single" males between approx 17 yo and 45 yo. Worked general property crimes, crimes of violence, one race riot, lots of drug cases, a few arsons, destruction of Govt property, faked death case, etc. Worked street drug ops with Spanish Guardia Civil and muni police, Italian Cararbinieri (sp?) and Questra, Yugoslav port officials, Egyptian street cops, French Surete, and US Virgin Islands PD.
1/80 - ?/82 Tidewater VA offices, general crimes & Evidence Custodian.
?/82 - 9/83 Tidewater VA Counterintelligence squad, various duties
9/83 - 8/85 NIS Headquarters Washington DC as Terrorism Analyst/manager of Navy Anti-Terrorist Alert Center (NAVY ATAC) where I supervised one guy who was later convicted of spying for a foreign government.
8/85 - 8/88 NIS Subic Bay Philippines as CI squad leader then Assistant Regional Director for Counterintelligence
8/88 - 8/90 NIS HQ Washington program manager in Navy Info/Personnel Security/Damage Assessment Branch of the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
8/90 - 7/92 Detailed to Director of Naval Intelligence as program manager
7/92 - 7/94 Desk pilot NCISHQ Counterintelligence Investigations Division. After my first wife passed away, I begged out of the management track and asked for reassignment as a street hump. Then reassigned:
7/94 - 7/97 NCIS Resident Agency London, UK, CI specialist and general crimes. Liaison with NATO country police departments in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburgh, and of course with the UK Police service. Worked with some super coppers in the London Met, Thames Valley Constabulary, Devon & Cornwall, Wales, and other Constabularies. Developed a very healthy respect for UK-style policing by consent.
7/97 - 12/2000 Detailed to US Onsite-Inspection Agency Travis AFB as CI officer, supporting START & INF Treaty inspections by Russian Federation in the western half of the the USA and some time in US Portal site in Urdmurt Republic of Russia.
12/2000 Retired from federal civil service.
In December 2000 moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to teach Counterintelligence as a contractor for the Dept of Energy. That gig will expire probably the end of this December and I will retire once again.
It has been a very different ride than I anticipated fifty years ago when as a kid I wanted to join the NYPD. I never did but a nephew did, and he and his brother, carry on the tradition in the NY suburbs.