ASSOCIATE Magazine FBINAA Q4-2025

O ne of the benefits of writing articles for The Associate Magazine is receiving emails from members whom I likely wouldn’t have otherwise met in person. My military and law enforcement background mirrors the careers of many of our fellow members. And my historical curiosity as to “why, when, and how” led me to question how many of our military graduates actually remain active in the Association. In my 215th Session, we had representatives of all military services. They were a mix of officers and senior enlisted active duty service members. Sadly, only one of those graduates is still an Association member. His name is Duane Oakes, a proud member of the Florida Chapter. This begs the question…what happened to the others? And that begs an even larger question – where are all our service members who attended the NA while serving on active duty? I’ve communicated with a few of them and would like to share their stories. Joel Leson, NA Session 88, is a retired U.S Army colonel who then served as a member of the Federal Senior Executive Service. I reached out to Joel after seeing several of his posts on social media. We both began our commissioned careers as armor officers before transitioning to the Military Police Corps. We both spent time in the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division (CID) – Joel as a charter member of CID’s organizational struc ture in 1971, and I as a gumshoe special agent in the mid-1980s. We both were impacted by Germany’s Bader-Meinhof Gang in the early 1980s – he commanded CID Special Agents involved in the investigation of the Gang’s attack on US Army-Europe’s Commanding General in Heidelberg, and me a military police investigator rushed to Heidelberg to provide close-in security to a general officer the day of that attack. Joel is a true American who fondly recalls his NA experience and speaks proudly of his NA affiliation. Tom Jones, NA Session 101, is a retired U.S. Army brigadier general. He is very active in the European Chapter as well as a member of the North Carolina Chapter. I met Tom and his lovely wife in Salzburg, Austria, during a European Chapter retrainer and again in Bristol, England, at another retrainer. To the best of my knowledge, he is the only NA graduate who attended while serving on active duty to rise to the grade of flag grade officer (general officer). I am proud to share that Tom is a fellow mem ber of the Army’s Military Police Corps Regiment. I found his story to be particularly interesting and would like to share it with you. In 1974, as a U.S. Army Military Police Corps major and veteran of two tours in Vietnam, I applied to attend the FBINA. The Army regularly was allocated a couple of seats in each NA session. I was at that time posted to the Pentagon as an HQDA (Headquar ters, Department of the Army) staff officer in a non-MP assignment. When notified by the MP Branch that I had been selected to attend the 100th Session of the NA, there was an immediate stumbling block, as the Defense Appropriation had not passed Congress, and the Army could not legally allow me to attend without committing funds to cover my attendance. The result was that rather than attending the “centennial” session, I attended Session 101 in 1975. Since I graduated from that session, I have been a continuing ac tive member of the NAA, first in the Washington DC Chapter, then when I was reassigned to Ft. Riley, Ks., to the Kansas/Western Mis John Simmons THE HISTORIAN'S SPOTLIGHT Historically Speaking

souri Chapter, returning to the D.C. Chapter when later assigned as Director, Concepts and Doctrine Directorate, U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Command (USACIDC) in Falls Church, Va. I had selected the Military Police Corps upon my graduation from college ROTC with the intent of using it as a back door to the FBI, which at that time was only accepting new agents who had a degree in law or accounting. I had learned that some MP Corps Viet nam veterans were being accepted without those requisite college degrees. In my initial assignments in the Army, I had come to like military service and had progressed well as a soldier. My selection for the FBINA and my long-term close association with the Bureau, thereafter, satisfied my early aspirations for service with the FBI, and contributed considerably to my success as an Army officer. The benefits of my NA attendance were ever evident in my assignment in 1980 to CID HQ, as relationships that I had nurtured with FBI Academy staff and instructors at Quantico, and the physi cal proximity of the CID HQ in Falls Church, allowed me to work closely with Quantico in identifying and coordinating attendance of CID Agents at various courses offered there. I was also able to collaborate at the policy, doctrine, and technology level at the forefront of our profession. In 1984, I was reassigned as Command er, 2nd Region USACIDC, serving all U.S. Army commands, installa tions, and activities throughout the European area. Shortly before my being assigned to Europe, it had been determined by the FBI that there was a sufficient number of NA graduates between the U.S. forces graduates there and the members of major European police agencies to warrant holding retraining sessions in Europe. In 1983, the European Chapter had been established, and the first Retrainer was held at the UK Senior Police College at Bramshill. I joined the Chapter at the second retrainer at the German Senior Police Academy in Muenster. The first few sessions’ attendees were principally rising police officers from the UK, Germany, France, and Spain. I have, from that second session through the present day, remained an active member of that European Chapter, which has grown from the initial few attendees to this year’s 41st Retrainer at Skopje, North Macedonia, with more than 200 attendees. I am also a member of the North Carolina Chapter, where I am presently living in retirement. Needless to say that as the Army CID commander in Europe and subsequently, on my promotion to brigadier general, as

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