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WARREN -- When Brent Aspinwall decided to join the United States military, he said he did so for three reasons -- to gain experience, to serve his country and to see the world.
"I was in active-duty Air Force from May of 1999 through May of 2003," he said. "I was with security forces, which is basically military police for the Air Force, stationed in Grand Forks, North Dakota, for a total of nine years."
Aspinwall said during his time with the Air Force, as a military police officer, he served in various security roles. He said he started as a security guard, protecting the main gate of the base.
"It all changed throughout my years,"Aspinwall said. "As a cop, you start out as what they call an installation entry controller, which is working the main gate, checking IDs, vehicles and making sure people coming in are authorized."
Throughout his time with the Air Force, Aspinwall progressed, learning new skills and gaining more experiences.
"Then, as you progress with experience and rank, we went from doing that to working out on the flight line, protecting the aircraft and the other assets that the Air Force had there," he said. "Then, once I progressed up to NCO (noncommissioned officer) status we went to patrol, where we were like a regular cop on base, responding to any crimes in progress or anything like that."
Aspinwall said on an average day as a patrol officer, he and his partners would start by going to the armory, where they would get their weapons issued as well as non-lethal weapons such as tasers.
After that, he said, they would receive any important information from their shift supervisor and then go and receive a briefing from the patrol unit they were replacing.
"Then we would go back just to normal patrol," Aspinwall said. "Patrolling was just like what a normal cop would do. We'd drive around base, do traffic, sometimes go through walkthroughs of the Base Exchange, which is like a department store like Walmart. We would respond to a myriad of calls. It could be an alarm at a building or a door, which was left open. The worst-case scenarios were domestic violence situations. Things like that."
Aspinwall said through his service with the Air Force, he was able to experience various cultures from around the world. He was deployed to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Aspinwall appreciated what he learned when interacting with those other countries.
"It was good to see other cultures and interacting with them," he said. "We would interact with other militaries. When I was in Iraq, we interacted with the Iraqi police, with their checkpoints. It was nice to see their culture. We would sit down with them and talk the best we could between the interpreter and us. We learned what their daily lives were like and told what ours were. The local delicacies, they would bring to the checkpoint and we would bring what we could from base out. Experiencing the cultures was amazing to see how different everyone lives."
After Aspinwall left the military, he and his family stayed in Grand Forks until 2015. He said he stayed with the Air Force as a civilian employee during that time.
Aspinwall and his family then moved to Niles for about a year before moving to Warren in 2017. He said his time in the military prepared him for his current job as a personnel security specialist with the Department of Defense.
Aspinwall said he appreciates what his time with the Air Force provided for him. He would encourage those interested in serving for the military to talk to a recruiter.
"It's definitely a good opportunity," he said. "It does give you lots of experience, it gives you more discipline within yourself. It teaches you more about core values and stuff like that. It's a good opportunity."